The Origin of Food.

As part of my latest studio project, I was asked to investigate a product researched by the SCRI (Scottish Crop Research Institute). The SCRI is a company based just outside Dundee which specialises in improving aspects of fruit and vegetables not using GM so they can be grown and produced more successfully. In usual graphic design style we each picked a fruit or vegetable from a hat, I received raspberry. For the first part of the project we were asked to thoroughly research our product, obtaining as much general facts about it as possible as well as looking at the work done by the SCRI on the specific given fruit or veg. After collating all the facts on raspberries I was asked to focus on something that interested me and create a broadsheet which explained it. I decided to focus on the fact that raspberries are the fruit which contains the highest levels of ellagic acid of them all! Ellagic acid has been proven to inhibit cancerous cells in animals and could potentially have similar result on humans if consumed over time. I focused my broadsheet around the fact that raspberries are a "cancer fighting fruit" and was quite pleased with the final outcome. Interestingly, the 2nd part of the project was to create a 3D typography installation to be exhibited in the university. I decided to continue with the fighting theme for my installation as it works well to show that raspberries have great benefits but also relates to that fact that raspberries are and aggressively growing plant as well as cancer being an aggressive disease. After throwing a few ideas around I decided to make a boxing ring which would contain my 3D type. I research a lot of boxing language and in particular phrases said by Mohammad Ali to see how I could use or edit them to fit in with my research contained on my broadsheet. I decided to go with 'Raspberry swings with a right, what a beautiful swing, and the punch raises cancer, clear out of the ring' which is an edited quote from Ali about an upcoming fight. I sculpted the letters from clay and painted the first two lines red and the other two blue to show the opposing sides. We had to produce our work for the exhibition in a very tight timescale but seeing everything set up together when the exhibition opened on friday made the stressing worthwhile. It all looked great and I think everyone who took part made a fantastic job with their piece :) Well done guys, we rock!


Pictures to come!

Queuerious

I have worked in a department store now for almost 3 and a half years but only recently have I noticed something very interesting about how people queue to be served. Over the past month or so as the store has become quieter after Christmas, I have noticed that people seem to herd together to queue. The pay point can be deserted for long periods of time and then several customers seem to all come at once, causing them to have to stand and wait rather than coming when there are no other customers at the pay point. I always think of queues as something to avoid, I personally hate waiting around standing in a queue to wait to pay for things. But do I subconsciously rush to join the queue when other people go? Does everyone? Because it happens every single time as i have observed at work, I can stand around for up to 30 minutes sometimes at the tills serving no one then as soon as one customer comes over they are subsequently joined by a queue of others. Its really interesting to see that people kind or herd together like sheep towards something you would think people would try to avoid. Do people feel they have to get there as soon as possible to avoid getting stuck in an even longer queue? But it is interesting to see that within a space of seconds there can go from being no one around to a formed queue of impertinent customers moaning about having to wait around. Some customers seem to get very irritated and moan about having to wait in a queue which could really been easily avoided if people didn't herd together all at one time. Once the queue clears it can be dead again for ages before it happens again. Its strange to think that people wander around and possibly don't go to pay until they see a queue forming when surely it would be more appealing to get served right away at a free pay point with no queue. I do not believe people are aware that they do this but once I noticed it, it becomes almost laughable as it happens all the time. It would be interesting to know if there is more psychology behind this or if it is just sheer coincident so if any one else has noticed this or has any insights please let me know!

Image Experiment - Assignment 2

For the first part of the assignment, I was asked to obtain 3 random images. I then had to ask a range of people to construct a story using the provided images, I asked people to keep the stories brief and the pictures could be used in any order.

The images I used are the last 3 above.



Here are a few example of the stories that people came up with using the images I gave them, I also took note of their ages, gender and occupation -


Gender: F
Age: 22
Occupation: Journalism student - Edinburgh Napier University

Three bears were totally bored one day, so decided to get off their rock and go somewhere beyond fun. They ended up at the beach. Yet, because they were bears the human people were scared of them. So they got captured and locked up in a room. Poor bears!



Gender: M
Age: 21
Occupation: Shop Assistant, graduate in Media.

After endless hours of staring through the hole in the three bears realised they were actually outside looking in. They were cold and hungry on the outside and could see goldilocks eating and sunbathing through the hole. If only they could get in they’d teach her for eating their breakfast!



Gender: F
Age: 20
Occupation: Receptionist and Textile Design student

There was a family of bears stuck in the zoo, when they looked through the barred window of their enclosure they could see the sea and dreamed of being free and swimming in it.


Gender: F
Age: 21
Occupation: Media, Culture and Society student- Dundee University

'The bears are encaged and isolated within a cage which is meant to provide them with security from the wild(pic 1), Through the iron bars they see potential dreams of freedom to live outside their current environment (pic 3). However, the iron bars both metaphorically and physically represent that they will not be free unless they go beyond the metal bars(pic 2).




Gender: M
Age: 24
Occupation: Sales Assistant

The bears were glad in the end. Although they sat, bored and sleepy they were ultimately glad that the wall at the far end of the enclosure was so tall. It was tall enough to keep out the shimmering blue sea which, the previous night, had threatened to sweep them all out to their death! At least with the window in place, they could still see the fantastic horizon.



Gender: F
Age: 20
Occupation: Geography student - Dundee University and Sales Assistant


Daddy bear, mummy bear and baby bear longed for freedom. Their zoo was small and people pointed and stared at them everyday. One day they combined their bear brains and climbed out of the little window in their pen. the bears had always loved the sea, after just one bus trip they were soon on course for Brazil in a little yacht and off to see their bear friends abroad.




Fot the second part of the assignment I was asked to select one of the stories and add a forth image that related to that story. I picked the story I thought was most realistic as alot of the stories I got back were quite silly! The story I chose was-

There was a family of bears stuck in the zoo, when they looked through the barred window of their enclosure they could see the sea and dreamed of being free and swimming in it.

This was to be my 'target' story and the forth image should try to help people get a similar story. The forth image I chose was the one of someone swimming (first image above) as the story mentioned that the bears wanted to swim in the sea.

I asked a new set of people to make up a story with the addition of the forth image using the same procedure as before -

Gender: M
Age: 23
Occupation: IT Engineer

A woman was swimming in the sea, she was caught up in the current and eventually washed up on shore. curious, she approached the nearest building and peered through the window, where she saw a family of bears.

Gender: M
Age: 27
Occupation: Store Manager

I was on my holidays when i looked out of the window into the sea, it was a cold October morning, and you could see the frost in the distance you could see 2 polar bears lying on the shore to the side, and there were people swimming in the sea, even though it was freezing


Gender: M
Age: 20
Occupation: Animation student - Dundee University

While Barry struck a pose of grandeur for the audiences, Bert and Brian really could not be bothered with the incessant crowds at the zoo and decided to look at the square TV that the zoo keepers had installed onto the wall. “Seawatch” was on.
The program detailed that a giant crocodile had already claimed several small, white, boats on the horizon in the previous weeks indiscriminately. They were immediately distracted, however, by a woman falling sideways over the barrier and into their drinking pond.


It seems that adding the image of the swimmer did not help in getting people close to the target story as the actual swimmer was focused on rather than the actual act of swimming and this related to the human rather than the bears. The bears were no longer the main focus of the story in most of them like they was in the first set. Although one person did still seem to include the bears in an enclosure type scenario in thier story, it still wasnt very close to the target story.

For the next part of the assignment I put the photos in order and also added a word to each to see if this might help people get closer tothe target story. I added "family" to the picture of the bears, "enclosure" to the picture of the barred window, "free" to the picture of the sea view and "swimming" to the forth image. These are the 3rd set of stories I recieved after making these changes -

Gender: F
Age: 22
Occupation: Textiles student - Dundee University

A family of large bears were kept in a small enclosure and longed to be set free so they can swim away from their torture.

Gender: F
Age: 20
Occupation: Shop Assistant

A family of bears were stuck in an enclosure and were then taken to the seaside and set free and they swam away to a free life.

Gender: F
Age: 20
Occupation: Textiles student

A family of bears were enclosed in a small area, they were then released and went swimming.

Gender: F
Age: 20
Occupation: Shop Assistant

A family who are at a zoo appear to be looking at a family of animals who are kept in enclosures. The family kidnap some water animals and went swimming with them.


As you can see adding the words definitly helped people get closer to the target stort. 3 out of 4 of the stories in this part of the assignment were loosely similar to the target. Adding text cleary had an effect as people used the words and focused on them probably even more so than the images themselves.

Although I still find the Barthes essay quite confusing I think I understand what he is saying about the linguistic messaage and how the addition of text to an image can alter a persons perception of what the image is portraying. When text is added it restricts a persons thinking and the thoughts on the image become much more focused. Especially in advertising which is closely related to my discipline, its as if we are being told how to percieve it rather than having free reign to do so.

As a graphic designer I feel it is important to consider exactly what message you are trying to get across to the viewer, its important to consider how a wide range of people might interpret an image rather than getting caught up in your own interpretations. I had my own instant idea of how the story would go using these pictures and words and it was so interesting to see how completely diffent some other people read them. I would have liked to ask a wider range of people from different ages and occupations to see how that might affect my results, but due to time restictions I stuck to people I know.

Roland Barthes - The Rhetoric of the Image

I was asked to read 'The Rhetoric of the Image' by Roland Barthes as part of this weeks design studies assignment. We were told in the assignment brief that it would be a difficult read and that was an understatement. I found myself having to read over it several times and still coming away with very little understanding of what the essay was actually saying. The words and language used were unnecessarily complicated which make it extremely hard to follow as half the time I was trying to figure out what the words actually meant before continuing with reading!

After a classmate recommended I looked up summaries of the text online I began to get a better idea of what it was about :) I gathered that the text was mainly about how we interpret images. Barthes explains that there are 3 significant levels when visually analysing an image. The first is the linguistic message which is how the text affects the interpretation of the image in the picture shown in the essay, the style of the text helps towards portraying an Italian feel as well as stating the name of the company. The second is the coded iconic message which is the overall assumptions you make from the appearance of the image, from what I understand things that do not need to be stated by text as they are obvious, for example in the image the vegetables and pasta are ripe and fresh (wouldn't want to show rotten food). The third is the non coded iconic image which is simply what you see in the image, what is actually in it. There are implications when analysing an image, such as cultural differences, how one person might perceive an image might be completely different from another depending on aspects of their culture. Although the addition of text in an image can help to convey a clearer, more specific message when applied to the image.

After reading (and attempting to understand) the Barthes essay we discussed in a group what we thought about it and how and if it related to our discipline. We all agreed that it is very relevant to Graphic Design, after all visual communication is what it is all about, especially when it comes to incorporating text. I believe that text can make an image and by this I mean it can convey exactly what you want to say, which might not be clear with an image alone. Especially when it comes to advertising, it is important to obtain an instant visual comprehension and the inclusion of text is important in doing that. When an image is alone with no text it is free to the interpretation of the individual, they are free to take from it whatever they want which can potentially be different from one person to the next, but applying text also applies constraints, which is helpful in advertising as it is usually a very specific message that is trying to be conveyed.

The other side!

Ailsa's blog can be found here - ailsamccreadie.blogspot.com/ If anyone is interested in reading about the findings from her point of view :)

Making Assumptions (Assignment 1C and D)

The first Assignment for Design Studies in semester 2 involved swapping photographs with a student you did not know well or at all from another discipline. The photo's were to be of either a selections of rooms from your home before anything had been tidied away, or a range of photos from when you were growing up. I received photo's from Ailsa, a textiles student. There were about 7 or 8 photo's from her childhood. We were asked to look closely at the photo's and try to make guesses about this person's life, their possible influence, tastes and try and make guesses about what their possessions or other things in the photo's say about them. I found it quite difficult at first as in the photographs that I received Ailsa was no older than about 4 or 5, therefore making assumptions about her current tastes etc was not easy. I had also given Ailsa a set of photographs of the rooms in my home and after both taking several notes on each photograph, we met up to discuss our findings.

In many of Ailsa's photograph's of her as a child she was with a man who I presumed was her father, there was only one picture with her mother so I therefore guessed she may be a bit closer with her Dad. Her dad also seemed relatively alternatively dresses in the pictures, in checked shirts and leather and also on a motorbike, I thought maybe Ailsa was influenced by him in some way involving this, possibly music taste. All but one of the photograph's were outdoors, from this I suggested she might be quite into being outside - at the beach etc as opposed to spending a lot of time indoors. From what I could see of the area in the photographs I guessed that she grew up in a quieter town rather than a busy city as the surroundings in the photographs always seemed to be in spacious places (the beach, park, garden) There was one photograph where Ailsa was with an older man and woman who I assumed were her grandparents, she seemed very happy in this picture, this was also the only photograph that featured another child. From this I guessed she was quite close to her grandparents and was possibly an only child, as all the other pictures (mainly with her Dad) were of just the two of them.

It was very interesting to discover that all the assumptions I made were correct. Ailsa told me that she did feel she was closest to her Dad and that her music tastes have been influenced by her parents, she listens to a lot of 'older music'. She also agree'd that she likes to spend time outdoors and grew up outside of a city. She informed me that she is in fact close to her grandparent and that she is an only child. Obviously it was difficult to know exactly where the photograph's were taken and who was in them so it was interesting that Ailsa explained the exact details of them all to me :) she told me about how she lived in England when she was a baby and that the other child in the photo was her cousin who she was very close in age to and gets on very well with.

I was also intrigued to see what Ailsa had assumed about me from my photographs. I guessed it would be difficult for her as my Mum is extremely house proud and even without tidying up beforehand the rooms are very tidy and there is not much possession on show. Despite this it was interesting to see that Ailsa has still made correct guesses about many aspects of my life. She obviously guessed that the house was kept very organised and tidy, likely by my mum which is right. She guessed I was influenced by this and was similar as my bedroom was also relatively tidy, which is spot on! She guessed from a photo of the dining room with a large table and chairs that I am quite a family orientated person, that we are close and eat meals and things like that as a family, also right. She also picked up on the fact that I have a brother who is a similar age and is very into music (his room is full of cd's). Ailsa also picked up on small things in my bedroom, such as two cuddle toys on my bed which she thought might have some sort of importance since I dont have much stuff left out in my room - one is a gift from my mum and the other from my boyfriend so both are special to me :) There were some details that we guessed that were a little off but generally the guesses we both made were pretty accurate.

I found it very interesting how much we both guessed right just from 6 or 7 photographs. Ailsa even picked up on things from my photo's that I never even noticed myself but were spot on. Although it was interesting, it was initially made me very uncomfortable making assumptions about someone's life when I don't really know them. I was a bit worried about getting it totally wrong or possibly offending her. I was also even more uncomfortable letting someone judge me - my home and making guesses about my life. It made me think about first impressions - I guess I am quite bad for making judgements when first meeting people at making instant assumptions about the kind of person they are but at least in this way you seem to be able to paint a reasonably accurate picture about that person and get insight into them and their life without ever really knowing anything about them originally. Overall, a little invasive but very interesting assignment!

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

I started a project the other week which asked us to tell a given story or fairytale using a pictorial/visual language. The story I was given was Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. As the story is about two sides, good and bad, I decided to look at the city of Edinburgh. It is well known that Edinburgh has two distinct sides - the new town and popular tourist areas and the underbelly, dark old town side. As i began to research I was intrigued that this one city has such distinct difference. I decided to use tourist maps as my method of visual communication as i thought it would be a good way to show several things in a city over a given area. I decided I would have one map with the attractions that people would like to visit in Edinburgh mainly at day time, and another on the underside of the map showing the more seedy places that are likely to be visited at night (Jekyll turned into Hyde and got involved in bad behaviour at night!) I began trying to find opposites, good and bad, from each other to put on both maps, for example red light areas against 5 start hotels, libraries against x rates magazine stores, tea at Jenners against shots at a cheap club. I thought the best way to represent these things would be to take the widely known public symbols found on current maps and alter them slightly to best represent the given place. I am currently in the process of designing the symbols and maps so i'll keep you updated on the progress :)

While creating the maps I was looking for a good way of finding colour schemes that represent a particular thing (i.e I wanted a 'gothic' colour scheme to use for the underbelly map) and i came across this great website where you can type in a word and it comes up with related colour schemes! It can be found here http://kuler.adobe.com/#