Group tutorial - Feedback
From having my tutorial with Fred I decided that my strongest idea was from looking at people dining in restaurants and the conversations that they have. I felt that it would be most interesting to look at these awkward situations; but rather than just in a restaurant I thought about what is the most awkward situation that you find yourself in to talk to a stranger? How do you define what you say to someone? Do we immediately judge others and then base that on how we start a conversation? For example at work I can always judge who I would have a good conversation with and who simply wants to eat and get out.
I am so bad at small talk and thinking of topics to talk about and I absolutely hate the awkward silence so I just start coming out with the most random things that just leave people baffled - a very awkward waitress. For me though, the most awkward circumstance I feel is when you get in the lift with strangers. I don't know about you, but I find it so hard to even make eye contact, I freeze up and don't say a word. This made me laugh, I just thought why would being in this confined space with a complete stranger make us feel so uncomfortable and not speak?
I wanted to look into whether its just a cultural thing, a thing of age, and whether people living in the same building around the same age may make more of an effort to talk compared to a public place with all kinds of people.
RESEARCH & CRITICAL AWARENESS- A little bit of history
Elevator designed by the German engineer Konrad Kyeser (1405)
Wikipedias info :
The first reference to an elevator is in the works of the Roman architect Vitruvius, who reported that Archimedes (c. 287 BC – c. 212 BC) built his first elevator probably in 236 BC.[1] In some literary sources of later historical periods, elevators were mentioned as cabs on a hemp rope and powered by hand or by animals. It is supposed that elevators of this type were installed in the Sinai monastery of Egypt.
In 1000, the Book of Secrets by al-Muradi in Islamic Spain described the use of an elevator-like lifting device, in order to raise a large battering ram to destroy a fortress.[2] In the 17th century the prototypes of elevators were located in the palace buildings of England and France.
Ancient and medieval elevators used drive systems based on hoists or winders. The invention of a system based on the screw drive was perhaps the most important step in elevator technology since ancient times, leading to the creation of modern passenger elevators. The first screw drive elevator was built by Ivan Kulibin and installed in Winter Palace in 1793. Several years later another of Kulibin's elevators was installed in Arkhangelskoye near Moscow.
I wanted to look into the history of the lift to see if there was anything I could perhaps recreate within my work or bring back old values.
Research - Observation
I took a lot of photos of lifts to use as reference material when eventually creating my illustrations
Stickers on the mirror in the lift - not a selfie I promise!
I sat for an hour opposite the lift in uni and found it really funny observing people's posture and body language when getting into a lift - they all seemed in a rush, impatient, and didn't quite know where to put themselves especially consciously knowing I was watching them. From this I later created sketches with little captions saying 'tip: stand as close to the lift as possible'
Here's a woman pretending to rummage through her bag, caught her on the sly
Where I sat
Looking into the lift, any further she would put her face through the glass
Some notes - More research
I asked people on Facebook what they do when they get into a lift in terms of that awkward situation - some funny answers which reflect what I do. Putting it on Facebook I knew I would get a response from people of different age ranges. It was interesting seeing parent's replies.
This benefitted me as I got an understanding of other people's awkward situations from different age ranges. I felt it was important to keep it quite open, act as an insider and get other people's funny stories that I could involve within my book. This in turn would make it more relatable and a more open audience, rather than my own experiences.
RESEARCH & CRITICAL AWARENESS - Observation
Sitting infront of the lift in uni
Sitting infront of the lift in uni
Sitting at my flat
Research - Photographs
Dodgey lift - really old school, loud and jolts - scary!
The mechanics - back of a lift
Pretending to be on his phone despite having no signal - you don't fool me!
Where I sat
Playing music on her iPod - unfortunately too quiet for me to hear what song she was listening to
I find it funny how people sit down when waiting for the lift, it's not going to take that long, surely your legs aren't that tired?
Bunch of friends - talking in their own language. Seemed quite happy
Two more ladies speaking a foreign language. I found this quite ignorant because neither of them made any effort to even look at me, smile at me, they had their backs turned speaking their language making absolutely no effort to talk to me considering we live in the same building
This girl decided not to sit next to me whilst waiting for her lift - but to get a chocolate bar, that will waste time
The stairs - does anyone notice these? Why do we not walk down the stairs and get the lift down? Why are these just seen as a fire exit route? The only time I have used these is when the fire alarm went off ! Pure laziness really
VISUAL QUALITY & CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT - Some sketches
Research - History of the lift
Book I found on elevators in the library - 'Up down across' Merrell
One thing I found interesting from this book was the idea of having someone in the lift to press the numbers for you. Back then people were so reliant on this and when this stopped people felt uncomfortable and awkward not having someone there to press the buttons for them. Once again creating an awkward situation; or perhaps it was more awkward having to make conversation with them.
VISUAL QUALITY & CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT - Some sketches
Research - Photographs
PROBLEM ANALYSIS - It was difficult to get photographs with people moving so fast sometimes so I had to video them and then take stills from that of which to draw from.
Group Crit
From a group crit I recieved some really positive feedback that my work was humorous; including everyday situations that you don't really think about and things we do subconsciously that we don't realise. Everyone agreed that the lift situation is very awkward and they gave me some new ideas in order to spread my research further.
One person mentioned how its the notion of being in a confined space around strangers and how I could adapt this idea to other areas such as forms of transport. She mentioned that being on a train is particularly awkward too, sat next to strangers, trying to pick your seat, wondering whether you should start conversation or not. They also picked up on how other cultures react to the lift situation as I did, and mentioned that maybe it is a particularly 'English' thing to act awkward, whereas other cultures seem unphased. For example, if you were in America would it be different and would they make conversation? Also they felt that a strong idea was when you leave a lift, and people are stood right in your way as you try to leave - this can be adapted to trains also and that awkward situation.
The group felt that I should maybe try and get some footage from security cameras of the funny things that people do in lifts maybe when they are drunk for example throwing up, or not realising there is a camera and getting up to things they would not if people were around. They mentioned that this would be interesting at different times of the day for example first thing on a morning and late at night.
VISUAL QUALITY & CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT
Ideas for the book - sketchbook
Here I was drawing and re-drawing looking at your watch because I was getting quite agitated with myself that I was not drawing it correctly. I have learnt I cannot draw circles!
I also needed reference material for some of the images I wished to convey, I took photos of myself with my nose pressed up against a wall and drew from that. (Not uploading those - too embarassing)
And used my own hands as reference.
I also needed reference material for some of the images I wished to convey, I took photos of myself with my nose pressed up against a wall and drew from that. (Not uploading those - too embarassing)
And used my own hands as reference.
Planning the layout of my pages
I was using references of babies from google as I had not managed to photograph any children. Obviously this would be too risky in public. However I found it difficult to find images of children that were staring up to the camera. I picked my final two that I liked and then will decide later which works best.
Text and typography exploration
One thing that I really want to work on is my typography within my work. I tried to experiment with it a little here, but I feel that adding text on Photoshop will be the best option. I want a tall thin text similar to the style of Mr Bingo but I can't seem to get my head around it just yet. I don't feel any of my text is strong enough to include in my final designs as they don't reflect a funny concept.
I found a text that I was most happy with out of the selection on Photoshop but in future briefs I will look further into this and practise doing it by hand.
Photoshop experiments
Artist influence that I can keep referring to
VISUAL QUALITY & CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT
Final Drawings
These are what were re-drawn to use as final drawings to scan in for my book. Most of these not including the text as I want to play around with typography on indesign or add text when printed.
More sketchbook work - planning
TECHNICAL COMPETENCE AND PRACTICAL DEVELOPMENT
Book-binding mock up attempt
I created a net layout for how I wanted to cut and fold some paper to create an envelope. To do this I had to measure the edges of how thick my book was going to be and add tabs onto areas to glue together. I punched a hole into it to allow for the book to be pulled out of the case. This in effect should look like sliding doors of a lift. Both the envelope and the front cover of my book will encorporate lift designs to support this notion.
Considering Layout
TECHNICAL COMPETENCE AND PRACTICAL DEVELOPMENT
Indesign Layout
I will produce 20 pages 297mm x 105 mm double-paged spreads. However I will print onto A3 and cut it down to size to allow for any bleed over the pages to occur and not be cropped off.
Colouring on Photoshop
VISUAL QUALITY
PROBLEM ANALYSIS - Things that went wrong
After printing out my final pieces in colour I noticed they were coming out a completely different colour to what I had worked on on screen. Some were too bright, some the opacity was too low so I spent a full day going back into my pieces, printing and re printing to figure out which opacity was best.
Preparing final indesign document
I had a real nightmare with this because Indesign kept crashing and would not save my work everytime I was half way through. It happened three times whereby I had to start again and create a new indesign document! Huge pain but got there in the end with patience!
ORGANISATION, COMMUNICATION & EVALUATION
The final product
I had a structure planned for the week, Monday and Tuesday would be spent finishing colouring my images which I had done successfully. Wednesday I would put them on my InDesign file and onto a usb to be printed. I was to go to Staples at 2 o'clock leaving enough time for any errors or if it took a few hours to print. However, when calling Staples they had previously told me they could not print from InDesign and it had to be exported to a PSD file. This was fine, and I did so, however a PSD file prints out single pages and that would mean my book would not be in order. I would have to split my images in half an paginate them in order. This was far too confusing and time consuming as I was booked into book-binding the next morning at 9:30. I went down to digital print and was told there was a walk-in slot at 8:45. I got there for half past 8 and successfully got my things printed in time to go to book binding at 10:30.
Organising my sketchbook
I had a lot of loose sheets of samples and tests I was doing as I went along, mostly prints so I put them into plastic wallets and taped them into my book to keep everything together in one place
PROBLEM ANALYSIS
So you would imagine that going to book-binding three times previous and creating a mock up book would mean things would run smoothly - not the case! When my images were printed they weren't the size that I had originally planned they were a little bit bigger. I had to draw out a net of how I wanted my envelope and found that I can't measure at all. Everything kept going wrong things weren't to scale so I found myself in there for a good 4 hours - not including the strike. I kept having to trim my pages down as I (very cleverly) hadn't included a bleed and there were white spaces around the sides. The book did not fit into the envelope I had made either which took far too long to put together so I trimmed down more of my book to fit. However, I then trimmed off far too much and lost a lot of my text.
Not a very good outcome, but a process and lesson learned non the less. Next time I need to include a bleed to allow for these mistakes. I feel I didn't bind my book very professionally either. It was very gluey and tacky and the edges weren't polished off.
Another thing that didn't go as planned was the amount of pages I had produced. I produced 18 images within my book not including the two for my envelope piece. However, when speaking to one of the IT technicians he said when creating a saddle-stitch its based on a 4 page format - meaning I would either have to lose two pages, or add two to my InDesign file. Having worked hard drawing, re-drawing and colouring my images I didn't want to lose two pages so he suggested I add a page to the inside of the book at the front and one on the back. I added two blank grey pages with text. However; when printed I realized they were in the wrong place - they had now become the front cover of the book which I didn't want. The whole idea of the book was for the front page to look like a door sliding out with a person inside of a lift stood ignoring you. The book was to slide out from the left like lift doors. Now, it slides out with a dark grey page that does not match the colour of the lift.
I should have given more thought into the layout of my InDesign rather than just dragging my images across. I find it difficult to imagine how an end product will look.
Final Outcome
Feedback
I noticed Mr Bingo had commented saying that my book was really funny which is a huge compliment as I really admire his work. He has influenced me when looking at my drawing style and how I can 'draw funny' rather than simply relying on text. He added that it lost its humour in parts where it seemed more personal which I can agree with; sometimes it is hard to know what others will find funny and what is just going on in your own weird mind !
Someone added about including a bleed as the words have been cut down. Once again I agree with this and is something that I will definitely take into consideration next time. I can't beat myself up about it, but use it as a lesson. I guess things need to go wrong and mistakes need to be made in order to learn from them. I was pleased someone picked up on my colour scheme used as well as I spent some time considering this playing around with different opacities and ensuring that my background colours followed a sequence and that I didn't include two of the same colour next to one another etc.
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