Garden of Eden

Abstract:

‘The Garden of Eden’ is a bold interpretation of God’s Garden wherein the floral and trees are an imagined species of hybrids. The colourful blossoms of Spring represents the beauty that the floral of life offers while the almagated body parts represents the hedonistic nature of paradise. Illustrated with reference to the style of bontanical illustrations, this piece is an introduction to various new species of Chimeras that are meant to represent the dualistic nature of all things alluring; seemingly innocent yet not quite so. What nature tries to hide we might never know and it might be beyond scicence but we can always take a guess.

Conceptualisation:

Initially I wanted to explore the skeletal structures of plants or giving them internal organs as I feel like that would be fun to explore. As I did my moodboard, the works of artist Bill Crisafi inspired me as his works combined human faces with flowers and I found it intriguing how they looked so unnatural yet so beautiful in a way. Hence, I wanted to explore the idea of a garden that looks beautiful from afar but happens to house body parts in the flowers and floral parts when one looks closer. But the beauty does not diminish and hence I imagined and understood it to be alike the Garden of Eden where it is a place of both sin and beauty. The flowers that bloom then represents the beauty while the body parts represents something wicked and unnatural.

Banner:

Media Art Nexus:

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Quantam Theory Project 3-Invite

Title of Theme: Entangled Jekyll, Enraged Hyde

Short Description: Extrapolating the theory of quantam entanglement to the literary story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I explore in this invite the struggles of two entangled beings grasping for monarch over a single body. In quantam entanglement, the state of one particle cannot be described independently of the state of another particle across distances and I would like to express that with the duality of Jekyll and Hyde; that their good and evilness comes hand in hand. Hence, with every formal and clean invitation layout (font page, the inner information), there is a hidden warped version of that layout and it has to be discovered (either through flipping the invite or opening up the invite further especially the second warped layout, there is a twist and turn action to access that layout and that is to imply that accessing Hyde and Jekyll’s inner psyche is not an easy feat; it requires some deliberation). Hidden in these warped layouts are some of Hyde’s thoughts like: “Jekyll no more” and “Let me out” in contrast with Jekyll’s cordial invitation. Hence, this invite aims to not only demonstrate the duality that comes with entanglement but the inexplicable trouble that comes with it.

Front: (Blue lines are where the invite is folded) 

Back: (Blue lines are where the invite is folded)

 

Picture of invite: 

Front:

Back:

Front unfolded (Inside):

Back Unfolded:

Paper Details: 

Name: Sagitta White

GSM: 110 GSM

Recurring Problems: 

The problem I had was mainly aligning the two sides as my folds have to be accurate so that the information in the middle section matches up and is readable. It was hard to align the folds especially since the middle of my invite is split into two folds and they have to come together perfectly. My test prints all had these problems that comes with alignment:

The centre has a gap that splits the information even if the information is aligned and matches up like the picture below:

The front of the invite does not line up to form a perfect square:

The first test print was horribly misaligned:

The printing done at sunshine was better but still misaligned:

The paper used here was 250 gsm which was too thick and left very obvious folding marks:

Hence, for the final one I chose a paper that has way lesser gsm: 110 and I told the printer to align it for me as best as he can. He used two pieces of paper (which is all that I bought) and failed to align it so I went to get more paper for him and he managed to somewhat align it in the end. The alignment is still not that perfect but it’s probably the best that I can get and I guess I’m satisfied with it :’)

Font Name: 

Avenir

Link to OSS post for Project 1: 

https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/qlee011/quantam-entanglement-mindmap-research-process/

Link to OSS post for Project 2: 

https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/qlee011/quantam-poster-process-to-be-updated/

Photo with poster: 

History of Design Reflective Essay

Given the purview of past design movements which flowed with changing contexts (social, political, economic, scientific, technological, philosophical, environmental, etc), what could be a potential emergent design manifesto, ethos, movements, styles, trends or directions, which you could creatively adopt for your FYP/Graduation Project?

When the term, “Graphic Designer” first surfaced in 1922, it was coined by artist William Addison Dwiggins (Heller, 108) and used to describe himself—a book designer, hand lettering artist, calligrapher, and illustrator etc. who was famous for his stencilled illustrations and works in the printed arts (Shaw, 1-3). Today, the ‘graphics’ that designers dabble in have taken on a form rather different from that which Dwiggins was known for. As technology evolves, digital mediums have become the prevalent method of creating graphics. Digital databases have made the duplication and recycling of images effortless. I believe that the next emergent design movement would be one that protests against the homogenisation of design. Specifically, I believe that it would spark the extreme modification of available assets and stock images that render them unlike their originals in order to encourage artistic innovation and individuality.

Design is becoming increasingly homogenised. Websites like ‘Canva’ offer a wide array of trendy templates and readily available vectors. The popularity of Canva especially; with over 4 million users (Kitschke); points to an increasing dismissal of originality in favour of speed and convenience. Over  80% of Fortune 500 corporations (Chau) using canva points to companies’ need for design and their looking towards such platforms for free and fast solutions. This results in the prevalence of templates and cookie cutter designs. Similarly, ‘Humaaans’ by Pablo Stanley (Stanley) is a library of human illustrations that can be twerked to the users’ needs and is free for commercial and personal use. These illustrations follow the style of a single designer and subsequent variations created by others would be restricted to that style. If more of such libraries are created and utilised, design would then become increasingly uniform and boring.

In reference to past art manifestos, this sets the stage for a potential art movement. Historically, movements are more often than not reactions; either a celebration of change or a protest against so. For example, the Arts and Crafts movement protested against the mass production brought about by the Industrial Revolution (“Arts”). It encouraged a going back to the basics of handcraft and a focus on sophisticated craftsmanship that mass production threatened to replace (“Arts”). It was a protest against a rapidly advancing world. Today, the world is advancing more rapidly than ever. Stock vectors and free templates are akin to inviting the mass production of images. This reminds one of the mass productions that the Arts and Crafts movement protested against. The Arts and Crafts movement was not simply protesting against mass production, it was protesting against the lack of quality and individuality caused by mass production. Similarly, readily available illustrations and templates discourages innovation and personality in one’s design. Hence, with the Arts and Crafts movement in mind, I believe that similar motivations would result in an emergent art movement that protests against the imminent phasing out of innovation and creativity in design as it becomes increasingly uniform.

In view of this, I would like my Final Year Project (FYP) to be a series of design works raising awareness of and criticising homogenised design. I would propose five sets of works that are built upon already available assets either photography: stock images or vector illustrations. I would then edit or illustrate over them until the end product is something entirely different from the original. By showcasing the  the process and titling the entire project, “Is this original yet?” I am implying how a designer can turn a piece of inspiration into an original work. In doing so, I hope to provoke conversations on how far one must innovate in order to turn something from an inspiration to an original and if new technologies are jeopardising and encouraging us to skip this important process.

As the world enters the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Marr) and has rapidly been digitised, the impact of technology on graphic design cannot be missed. With platforms like Canva and libraries of stock designs, the line between a designer and a layman becomes blurred. Designs becomes less individualised and more uniform. I believe that this creates enough motivation for creatives to begin a movement that protests against so. Hence, I would like to creatively adopt this for my FYP and work on a project that denies homogeneity in design and promotes innovation despite the huge libraries of assets encouraging otherwise.

 

Works Cited:

Chau, David. “Canva: Online Design Startup Joins Generally Overvalued ‘Unicorn’ Club.” ABC News, 8 Jan. 2018, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-09/canva-australian-unicorn-1-billion-valuation/9312458.

“Canva Raises $US6 Million and Announces ‘Canva Pro.’” About Canva, 14 Aug. 2019, https://about.canva.com/news/canva-for-work-launches-to-4-million-users/.

Heller, S. (1991). “W.A. Dwiggins: Master of the Book.” Step-by-Step Graphics, January/February 1991, http://www.hellerbooks.com/pdfs/step_dwiggins.pdf. Accessed 17 November 2019.

Marr, Bernard. “The 4th Industrial Revolution Is Here – Are You Ready?” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 14 Aug. 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/08/13/the-4th-industrial-revolution-is-here-are-you-ready/#7b78d398628b.

“Mix-&-Match Illustration Library.” Humaaans, https://www.humaaans.com/.

Shaw, Paul. “Tradition and Innovation: The Design Work of William Addison Dwiggins.” Design Issues, vol. 1, no. 2, 1984, p. 26., doi:10.2307/1511497.

“The Arts & Crafts Movement Overview.” The Art Story, https://www.theartstory.org/movement/arts-and-crafts/.

 

 

 

 

 

History of Design Lecture 4 Reflections

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/774124913817174/?lp=true

A font that caught my attention during this lecture was Univers as this lecture was after my typography lesson in which we learnt about letter pressing and we saw the fonts classified into tiny cabinets. What intrigued me was that Univers has such a huge family and the way that they are named.

Upon further research, I found out that the first Univers family had 21 varying fonts and has since expanded to 44. It was designed by Adrian Frutiger from 1954-57 and produced by the Deberny & Peignot foundry in 1957.  It is the first typeface to number its fonts based on the weight-55 is the base weight, anything smaller is thinner and anything larger is thicker while odd numbers are bolded fonts and even numbers are italicised fonts.

Univers typeface was very popular when it was released, even more so than Helvetica which is more popular now. It is preferred due to its versatility with its large family of variations, and its clean-cutness. It has been used widely in branding and signages (e.g. London signages).

I personally really like san serif fonts as I find them very practical and clean. Before this lecture, I use Helvetica a lot but then I realise that Univers is another font that I would like to work with and am excited to! These few weeks to come have been eye opening and for a student majoring only in visual communication, I have learnt a lot on the milestones of graphic design and typography and have expanded my reference library! I think that even though we have to listen up due to the quizzes, the content itself was interesting and I liked that we not only learnt about design but also photography! Thank you for these past weeks!

References:

https://www.fonts.com/font/linotype/univers/story

The Univers of Helvetica: A Tale of Two Typefaces

https://www.linotype.com/267/univers.html

Adrian Frutiger, type designer and creator of London’s street-sign font, dies aged 87

Featured photo:

 

 

 

 

Quantam Poster Reserch, Process and Final

Initial Brainstorm:

At first, I wanted to explore the theme of duality which I feel exemplifies both Quamtam physics and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In quantam physics, if one electron spins in clockwise direction, another spins in the anti-clockwise direction hence there is a sort of opposition and duality in play here. For Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, that duality is even more obvious as Mr. Hyde is a reflection of and the evil parallel of the noble Dr. Jekyll.

Some words that I branched out to that I feel tells the story of Jekyll and Hyde were: Conflict, Intrusion, Trapped & Freed, Instincts, Human Nature, Murder and Agony, Entangled

Hence I wanted to portray them in the posters below:

First sketches:

Initially, when I first thought of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, because it is a literary story on its own, it was very easy to conceptualise posters that are more like movie posters and are more representative.

Poster 1 & 2: Dr. Jekyll trapped behind claws that are like prison bars (Keywords: Trapped and Freed: Jekyll is trapped while Hyde is freed)

Posters 3,4, and 7 all feature an icon of either Jekyll and Hyde or both and an assaulting of surface by splashing black ink onto a linocut of rigid patterns. (Keywords: Murder, Blood, Disruption, Conflict)

Posters 5 and 8 deal with wavy lines and the idea of ‘wavelengths’ to communicate the coming together and separation of Jekyll and Hyde. (Keywords: Conflict, Human Nature, Entangled, Intrusion, Trapped & Freed)

Poster 6 is like a move poster featuring diagonals and contrasting both men with the things they hold: Jekyll holding a test tube and Hyde holding a murder weapon. (Keywords: Contrast, Conflict, Murder)

After consultation however, Ina suggests that I use more of patterns and linocut to bring out the idea of Jekyll and Hyde and that I do not have to be super in-your-face about the story or the plot. I decided to focus on assaulting the surface and to use that to represent the sudden presence of Hyde and the disruption he brings to Jekyll’s otherwise peaceful life.

Some forms of assualting the surface that we came up with were:

-Ink Splashes

-Paper tears

-Lino cutter slashes

-Multiple inking

etc.

I went back to the keywords and realised that I have some action words that may aid in my assaulting of the poster surface and categorised them according to how I might utilise them:

For ink: stain, smear, dirty, blood->to represent murder 

For ink staining/ruining a pattern/sudden lino cut slashes: outburst, disruption, rupture, pressure 

Pattern: Trapped/freed (with ruining of it)->to show restraint, suffocation, repression, oppression, conflict

I was afraid of going too abstract and Ina suggested that my words simply be the title “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and the patterns be suggestive of their natures and the story.

Moodboard references: 

Initially, my moodboard leaned towards linocuts and more graphic representations.

After consultation however,  I decided to focus more on mark makings and focused on posters that are more geared towards assaulting the surface/disrupting a pattern particularly with marks or inks etc.

 Process of first drafts:

  1. Stencil and linocut the title

2. Printing

3. Ink splashing

4. Writing ‘Dr. Jekyll’ with my right hand and ‘Mr. Hyde’ with my left

5. Scanning and digitising of marks and writing

 

First Digitised Drafts:

Layout #1a

For this layout, I tried using the techniques Overlapping, assaulting the surface then overwhelming the eye. 

I overlapped the ink splashes with the words then traced out the outlines of the ink splashes, duplicated them and scattered them to get a glitchy effect.

I duplicated the words then shifted them and lowered the opacity to get a shadowy effect that also represents the split personas of Jekyll and Hyde and one being more domineering than the other. I added the splashes to assault the clean surface alike to how Hyde’s murder and violence causes disruption in Jekyll’s otherwise calm and peaceful life. The splashes were meant to look like blood stains and I covered the words ‘Mr. Hyde’ more with the splashes to show that it is Hyde’s sin but the glitching lines overlapping the words ‘Dr. Jekyll’ shows that Jekyll is inexplicably implicated and affected by Hyde’s sin.

Layout #1b

I then realised that i should have framed it with the golden ratio and so here’s 1b!

Layout 2

For this layout, I tried using the techniques Overlapping, Activating the diagonal, and assaulting the surface. 

Because in some stage play versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the actor differentiates both personas by Dr. Jekyll using his right hand and Mr. Hyde using his left, I decided to write the words Dr. Jekyll with my right hand and mimicked victorian handwriting (cursive) while I used my left hand to write Mr. Hyde.

Some references of Victorian handwriting:

http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/handwriting.html
http://history.powys.org.uk/school1/llanwrtyd/examine.shtml

I duplicated the Dr. Jekyll words and the Mr. Hyde words and overlapped them  to visually represent the entanglement between the both of them and the chaos that ensued because of it (as it looks very messy). Then, I added the ink splashes (rotated them so that they are diagonal) and duplicated them, lowered the opacity to get a more inky effect. The ink splashes were meant to mimic blood splashes, pointing to traces of Hyde’s violence and murder.

I also blanked out some ink splashes to get more variation and to represent the lack of intentions on Jekyll’s part to be a murderer. I also framed the composition using the golden ratio.

Layout 3

For this layout, I tried using the techniques Activating the diagonal and overlapping. 

I cropped an enlarged splash mark from the scans that I had:

and adding the words Dr. Jekyll in white on the black part as Dr. Jekyll is the noble character surrounded by darkness (the black part). I added Mr. Hyde in black to show the contrast between him and Jekyll and let the splash marks intersect with it to show the disruption and chaos the character Hyde brings.

Some other drafts and layouts:

     

After consultation, Ina suggested that I put the title “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” into the top right hole of Layout #2

and that I utilise the full rawness of the linocut print itself:

as the first layouts feel too digitised and have lost the rawness of the linocut print. For the first linocut, I thought I should just use the words but Ina made me realise that I should fully utilise the whole lino pad, even the places where I cut uglily or wrongly to produce a print that is raw and more natural.

Second Drafts:

Refining Layout 1:  Digitisation

These are iterations from the plain lino cuts:

  1. Plain lino cut
  2. Full black bloodstains/ink splashes and outlines of splashes with plain lino cut
  3. Green outlines of bloodstains/ink splashes with plain lino cut
  4. Red outlines of bloodstains/ink splashes with plain lino cut
  5. Plain lino cut with Jekyll/Hyde handwriting
  6. Plain lino cut with Jekyll/Hyde handwriting & red outlines of bloodstains/ink splashes

Refining Layout 1:  Analogue (by splashing ink directly onto linocut print) 

Refining layout 2:

  1.  All Black, Handwriting with 2 layer of Dr. Jekyll and 2 layers of Mr. Hyde
  2.  All Black, Handwriting with 2 layers of Dr. Jekyll and 3 layers of Mr. Hyde,
  3.  All Black, Handwriting with 2 layers of Dr. Jekyll and 3 layers of Mr. Hyde, differing opacity
  4. Title red, splashes black, Handwriting with 3 layers of Dr. Jekyll and 2 layers of Mr. Hyde, differing opacity
  5.  All red, Handwriting with 2 layers of Dr. Jekyll and 3 layers of Mr. Hyde, differing opacity
  6.  All red, Handwriting with 1 layers of Dr. Jekyll and 2 layers of Mr. Hyde,

After final consultation, it was between these three:

and the class chose the one with the red lines only (option 2)

but i felt that its too simple and doesn’t convey the idea strongly enough.

Hence, I duplicated the red lines and coloured them green, inverted them and toggled with the scattering to get this:

Ina mentioned that the green parts at the bottom right looks too stamped and deliberate so I stretched them further apart vertically and horizontally.

and I feel like this conveyed the chaos that I was looking for with the inversion and intersection of green and red lines showing the difference between Hyde and Jekyll (that they are opposites of each other) but entangled with each other and cannot be separated.

Final poster in high res:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IY38scqV_acVNb5kPuRvWli6Wfhkji_a/view?usp=sharing

 

 

 

 

 

History of Design (To Bauhaus and Beyond) Reflection: The Beggarstaffs

This lecture was filled with a lot of interesting examples exemplifying the various art movements but the work that I found most interesting was the Beggarstaffs’ ‘Kassama’!

‘Kassama’ by the Beggarstaff Bros., 1894 https://www.cam.ac.uk/beggarstaffs

It reminds me of the posters that we have now like:

Magnum advertisement by Thomas Danthony, 2018 https://www.danstapub.com/magnum-pleasure-icon-art/
‘Balloons’ by Malika Favre for Papyrus https://www.malikafavre.com/balloons

But of course, these are digitised while the Beggarstaffs worked with collages and paper cut outs.

The ‘Beggarstaffs’ made up of two artists: William Nicholson and James Pryde. Nicholson was English while Pryde was Scottish and they are brother-in-laws as Nicholson married Pryde’s sister. In 1894, they formed the ‘Beggarstaffs Bros.’ after seeing the word on a fodder sack and teamed up to create posters that were known for their bold simplicity. This was during the Art Noveau period where the use of curvilinear and floral shapes was abundant in posters.

Below are the posters ‘Gismonda’ by Alphonse Mucha and ‘Hamlet’ by the Beggarstaff Brothers. Both are produced in 1894, life sized and for theatrical productions but both are in very different styles. Mucha’s ‘Gismonda’ was in the Art Noveau style with the curvilinear and whiplash strokes and shapes while ‘Hamlet’ was done with stencil and painting over brown paper. ‘Hamlet’ compared to ‘Gismonda’ is very simplified and not ornamented at all, be it the illustration or the typography. It exemplifies how the Beggarstaffs went against the style of their time and created posters that are radically different.

‘Gismonda’ by Alphonse Mucha, 1894 https://www.myddoa.com/gismonda-alphonse-mucha/

They were not the only ones who went against Art Noveau as Lucien Bernhard and Ludwig Hohlwein’s Plakatstil and Sachplakat (‘Poster Style’) also similarly advocated for simplification, flat colours and a focus on the central object being advertised (after the Beggarstaffs beginning around 1905 hence we can see their influence).

‘Priester’ by Lucien Bernhard, 1905 https://www.britannica.com/topic/Plakatstil

The Beggarstaff Brothers went their separate ways after five years as they were a commercial failure due to the boldness of their works but they were regarded highly for their influence and originality.

I think that the style of the Beggarstaff Brothers can be seen in today’s graphic design and posters. Instead of stencils and paper cutouts, we have vectorised designs that favours simplification and limited colour palette. The Beggarstaff Brothers’ influence can be seen in the art of modern artists like Malika Favre.

‘In The Shade’ by Malika Favre for the ‘New Yorker’, 2016 https://www.malikafavre.com/intheshade

Personally, I feel like poster design today has become restricted by digitisation. More can explore a mixture of analogue and digital methods to fully utilise and combine the raw craftsmanship quality of art and the tools of digital illustration to create designs that are timeless.

References:

https://www.cam.ac.uk/beggarstaffs

https://beggarstaffs.com/biography/

Illustration Inspo — From the Beggarstaff Brothers to Ben Wiseman

http://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2011/02/beggarstaff-brothers.html

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/art-design/2019/05/beggarstaff-brothers-posters-graphic-design-fitzwilliam-museum-cambridge-review

https://www.theartstory.org/movement/art-nouveau/history-and-concepts/

“Gismonda” by Alphonse Mucha

http://www.csun.edu/~pjd77408/DrD/Art461/LecturesAll/Lectures/Lecture06/Plakastil.html

https://www.malikafavre.com/

Featured Image: ‘Cinderella’ by the Beggarstaff Bros., 1895
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f8/4e/55/f84e55016efab05a853989abaf171b5b.jpg

 

 

 

History of Design Reflection 2: Kelmscott Press

The Kelmscott Press was set up by 1891 by William Morris, an influential artist of the Victorian 19th Century who headed the Arts and Crafts Movement. The movement started in the wake of the Industrial Revolution where the artists found that craftsmanship and design have been jeopardised by machines and mass production. Hence, the art of this movement reflected the spirit and styles of old medieval art.

The Kelmscott Press also printed books in the Medieval way with ornamental illustrations (done by his long time friend and partner Edward Burne-Jones). It reflected Morris’ admiration for Medieval scripts, books and craftsmanship. Everything was created from scratch: Morris created three typefaces and paper was made from linen and modelled after a 14th century Italian paper. It is made without chemicals, so was the ink that the press used. Very close attention was paid to the margins of the books as Morris wanted them to mirror the margins of Medieval books (the innermost margin is smallest followed by the top margin then the outermost margin then the bottom).

His philosophy for the books he has printed was that he wanted to produce beautiful books but as the same time, they must be easy on the eyes and readable. The three fonts that he printed were: Golden, Troy and Chaucer, all named after the books the fonts were first printed for (The Golden Legend, The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troy and The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer). He wanted to use a font that is consistent in stroke widths (unlike modern fonts with the huge contrast in thin and thick strokes) for readability and modelled Golden after the typography of 15th century printers. He then created a roman font Golden and the Gothic font Troy. As criticism towards Gothic letters was mostly of the difficulty to read them, he created the font without bundling the letters together so that it is not condensed and is as readable as a roman font. The Chaucer is a smaller version of Troy.

Golden Font https://www.pinterest.com/pin/207236020329990348/?lp=true
Troy Font http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-24795.html

He also believed the modern printers used space too sparingly and left too many rivers. He felt that space should be used just enough to separate words and should be done so consistently and frowned against excessive leading.

The Press’ most celebrated work was ‘The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer’, later known as the ‘Kelmscott Chaucer’ that reflects the popularity and influence of the Press. It closed down seven years after it was established. When Morris passed away in 1896, his successor Sydney Cockerell tied things up in a year or two and closed it to preserve his legacy.

Pages from the ‘Kelmscott Chaucer’ https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-kelmscott-chaucer
Pages from the ‘Kelmscott Chaucer’ http://morrissociety.blogspot.com/2010/08/ideal-book-william-morris-and-kelmscott.html

Thoughts:

I think that it’s very admirable of Morris to want to pay tribute to medieval books and print and the lengths that he would go to ensure that authenticity. In our capitalistic society today, what saves cost and time would be the preferred method and so a Kelmscott Press would most likely not survive if it were to be set up now. However, I feel like a Press like this would remind us of a kind of beauty and craftsmanship that is lost as technology becomes increasingly advanced and preferred.

References:

https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/introducing-william-morris

https://williammorrissociety.org/about-william-morris/

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/morris/kelmscott.html

https://archive.org/stream/ANoteByWilliamMorrisOnHisAimsInFoundingTheKelmscottPressTogether/MdUZ232M87M831898#page/n10/mode/1up

https://www.lib.umd.edu/williammorris/kelmscott-press/the-kelmscott-press

https://www.clevelandart.org/research/in-the-library/collection-in-focus/william-morris-and-kelmscott-press

https://www.britannica.com/art/Arts-and-Crafts-movement

 

Reflection 1: Didot Typeface

The Didot Typeface was created around the late 1780s to the early 1800s by Firmin Didot who hailed from the famous  French Didot family. The Didot family were renowned in the French printing industry and his brother Pierre Didot first printed the typeface and eventually printed the famous poem ‘La Henriade’ by Voltaire in Didot.

1819 version of Voltaire’s La Henriade

The Didot typeface is known as a ‘modern’, ‘neoclassical’ or ‘Didone’ typeface. These typefaces can be recognised by high contrast between its thick and thin strokes and thin and straight horizontal serifs. They are known as ‘neoclassical’ as they reflect the neoclassicism of that time. Neoclassicism is an art movement from the mid 1700s to the mid 1800s, during the ‘Age of Enlightenment’. It stands for the simplicity and geometry reflected in Greek and Roman art and rejected the gaudiness and excessive ornamentation that characterised the Rococo period before. The Didot typeface reflects neoclassicist values as it is not overly ornamented and is geometrically precise.

These typefaces are known to be elegant but can be quite hard to read due to the drastically varying thick and thin strokes. They are usually used for large prints and titles but not for body texts.

The Didot typeface is similar to the Bodoni typeface by Giambattista Bodoni.

Research by Jaketsmith on the similarities and differences between Didot and Bodoni typefaces: https://jacobsmithdesign.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/screen-shot-2009-09-29-at-1-36-08-am.png

As can be seen, Bodoni’s serifs are thicker and it has a lower X height. Both typefaces faced a problem called ‘Dazzling’ when they were first printed where the thin strokes are so thin that they do not appear in print.

I decided to choose the Didot typeface as I liked how elegant it looked when I did my typography assignments. After researching on it and understanding the ideals and history behind its strokes and serifs, I’ve come to appreciate it even more and will definitely pay closer attention to modern typefaces in the future!

References:

https://www.theartstory.org/movement/neoclassicism/

https://www.typography.com/fonts/didot/design-notes

https://www.fonts.com/font/linotype/linotype-didot/story

https://medium.com/@redheadedmandy/didot-typeface-d38ee7c02c4c

Didot Research

The Modern Typeface

Featured image: https://fontsempire.com/font/didot-font-family-download/

 

 

 

 

UPDATED Quantam Entanglement (Mindmap, Research & Process)

When I first received the brief and did some research, the first thing that popped out to me was Quantam Entanglement as I found it interesting how two matters can affect each other across distance even if they are not in contact with each other.

I then branched out to the more physical ideas like Pairs of things or the Night and Day cycle, things that have opposing ends etc. before going into metaphors and literature like Jane Eyre vs. Bertha Mason, Prince and the Pauper and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The last one struck me because I think that it’s very representative of Quantam Entanglement where when you have a good side of that person, you’re bound to have a bad side of that person and if Jekyll is good then naturally Hyde is bad and if Hyde is good then Jekyll is bad.

Hence, I decided to explore Quantam Entanglement via Jekyll and Hyde.

At first, I decided on the keywords: Self vs. The Other Self and Chaos vs. Order and decided on the images of claws, human teeth and footprints.

I wanted to show the contrast between the monster self and the human self hence the differing sizes and shapes of the monster paw vs. the human hand or the human teeth vs. the monster fangs.

After consulting with Ina, she recommend that I used a grid and when I was trying to do so, I realised that these shapes are very hard to fit into a grid and that this was too obvious and not abstract enough.

I also wanted to try linocutting to make the mark as I think that there is something raw about linocutting that is representative of the rawness of human nature that the story of Jekyll & Hyde was trying to explore.

So instead of the sketches that I have I decided to come up with new ones and explored the idea of a ‘monster holding a test tube’ to show both the harmony and the contrast between the rationality of science and the lack of rationality of a monster that is balanced out perfectly in this figure of Hyde/Jekyll.

I then digitised them and came up with more variations.

But the grids are still kind of rough as I wasn’t really sure of how to deal with overlapping shapes until the class where our classmates kindly taught us how to (thank you so so much!!!)

Ina mentioned that from the previous drafts, the mark looked too separated from the circle so I tried to merge them more in the first pic and I found that they look a little too boring so I omitted a part of it also to show the emptiness or lack of rationality that Jeykll embodies.

The last mark with the four square is supposed to imitate traditional chinese stamps with traditional words like these:

https://chinese5art.wordpress.com/category/chinese-fine-art/

and Ina also mentioned that the first draft looks too ‘floaty’ so I merged them more into the borders and they show the sequential turning of Jekyll into Hyde with the number of claws increasing.

With linocutting, the first attempt was not too successful as I tried to use the marks to bring out the shapes and forgot that since I am printing it by flipping it and pressing it onto a piece of paper, I should cut it on the reverse side but I did not so I got this

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And I realised that instead of marking the shapes I should mark the outside to bring out the shapes so I tried it again (and this time reversing it). I also referenced a linocut artist Peter Nevins whose use of curves to frame and shape figures is very masterful and I feel like would help me frame my shapes well too

One artist I referenced was Peter Nevins: https://www.peternevins.com/products

‘Grow’ by Peter Nevins

‘Write’ by Peter Nevins

For the more squarish and geometric one, I use curved lines to frame the curvatures and straight lines to frame the straight areas and formed a sort of weaving pattern to bring out the shapes.

For the circular mark, I used curves to frame the the shapes and I find the weaving pattern very interesting as it kind of exemplifies the chaos yet order (which was one of the keywords I wanted to play with) of the science that Jekyll was experimenting with and that was aligned with Quantam Entanglement.

These are the printing process:

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I’ll experiment more with linocutting in the week to come!

After consultation, Ina mentioned that I should use reference color scheme for the colors that I used to differentiate the various shapes to use the pathfinder tool on.

These are the pictures that I referenced:

And I applied the referenced colors to the shapes here.

And for this too.

After using the pathfinder tool, I got these:

And started to do more linocutting. I decided to practice some basics first so to do some mark making first:

then I carved out the mark that I wanted which from the previous consultations, Ina mentioned that I should work on mark 2. I also felt that mark 2’s curves + straight edges gave me more to play with and I can explore the co-existence and harmony of both weaved curves and weaved straight lines that plays to the idea of two opposing things coming together (reinforces Quantam Entanglement/ Jekyll and Hyde).

And after some printing errors (where the ink is either too clumpy or too faded):

This was the final one that worked well :))

After consultation, Ina also mentioned for me to frame the design within a circle. Initially, she suggested doing so through digitisation but I decided that I wanted to keep it raw so I decided to linocut a circular frame first then digitise the two marks together.

Here’s the circular frame carving!

Here are the marks it produced and I chose the last one as it is the darkest and most complete circle!

I first put a clipping mask on the mark with the test tube to frame it with a circle.

Then mask out the circular mark from the image of it.

Then combine the both and used clone tool to clean it up so that the edges don’t look too abrupt or clean (to keep the rawness of the linocut)

And I also cleaned up the blotches as the bottom left to get the final mark!

From this project, I realised that by drawing parallels between science with literature, I also found the differences between the both. While in quantam entanglement, when one particle spins in a clockwise direction, the other is sure to spin in an anti-clockwise direction, it is not so clear in the example of Jekyll and Hyde. Yes, Hyde is evil and Jekyll is good and hence the parallel but the novel also raises questions as to whether Hyde is completely bad and if Jekyll is completely good and so this poses a difference between science and literature. While the quantam entanglement theory has been widely debated, it is mostly proven true and the theory itself, though doubted, has very little room for differing perceptions and versions of it.  Meanwhile in literature, it is up to the reader’s perception of the story to come to a conclusion if Hyde or Jekyll is completely good or bad (in other words, the direction in which these two particles spin and the conclusion can be entirely ambiguous in which Jekyll and Hyde both spin in both directions).

Hence, this exploration makes me conclude that as much as science is definitive and literature is open-ended (the opposite), they are both ways in which Man explores the world and neither is above the other. Also, perhaps the juxtaposition of science vs. literature also runs in parallel with quantam entanglement in which these two very differing subjects are interdependent on one another. The world cannot be entirely explored in definitive lenses, all would be too rigid and much beauty would be lost. It can also not be explored in entirely flexible viewpoints as we need some facts to ground us. The rigidity of science is enhanced by the open endedness of literature and vice versa hence this exploration, when thought further is really an extrapolation of Quantam Entanglement to the broader subjects of science and literature.