Iconic

I found myself watching an interesting Andy Warhol film for the South Bank Show this evening. Everyone knows the work of Warhol, his pieces based on iconic imagery have become some what iconic themselves. It was really intreguing though to see more about how he approached his work, he was a really interesting character. There was a part of the show that looked at one of Warhol's most famous pieces - the campbell's soup painting. It was said in the show that 'he believed packaging was more important that what is inside' which as a graphic designer I found really interesting - if the packaging and branding is done well and becomes well known - does it really matter about the quality of the product inside? After all it doesnt seems like the most interesting thing to paint - a tin of soup - but its not about what it is exactly for Andy Warhol, its about the underlying message or story that the image holds there is always a back story to his works and campbell's soup is iconic - its an item everyone has without even thinking about it.

wool + whale = pie!

The final part of one of my main study projects was to create packaging for a 'revolutionary food product'. I was asked to combine the material and food source from previous parts one and two of the project. My material was wool and my food source was whale. At first I was a bit clueless as to how I could combine these two extremely different items to make a brand new, exciting product. Some people in the group had materials such as plastic or cardboard which made the packaging stage a little easier so I was a little gutted at having wool initially as it is not exactly a diverse, modern material - in my mind its a material generally associated with tradition rather that revolution.

Although after brainstorming for a while I realised I could use wool to my advantage. When researching wool in the first part of the project as well as looking into its properties and functions I looked at sayings and phrases that are associated with the word wool. The most interesting one I came across was 'to pull the wool over someone's eyes' which most people know is a saying to mean to decieve or conceal the truth from someone. I thought about how some food products can have hidden ingredients or how the ingredients of a product can sometimes be misleading or slightly concealed. I thought this would be an interesting thing to look into and I began looking at food in the war time and how they put hidden ingredients into meat products as there was a lack of food, they put horrible things into meat products to bulk them out. I even discovered that they used whale meat in the war as 'one whale alone would provide alot of whale steaks'(http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/92/a1110592.shtml) I thought that using whale meat as a hidden ingredient would be an interesting route to take, although not particularly revolutionary, I thought it would be a good starting point. I then had to think about how I could put a modern twist on it, I began looking at pork products as pork was one of the main meat products used in the war and also some whale meat is said to taste like pork.

I looked into pork pies as they are small and easy to work with and seem to carry a homely,almost honest kind of feel so I decided to substitute the pork in the pies for whale meat - as an unknown ingredient. I wasn't sure if using wool just in a saying sense was enough, so I looked at how I could use it to package my food product and I came up with the idea of making a pie warmer! I decided to knit a wool cosy that can keep pie's warm while you're on the go, wool after all is a naturally very insulating material so it is perfectly fit for purpose!


I called my pie product 'porkies' as it suggests the inclusion of pork but also means lie's :) I was quite pleased with how my project turned out!


Here is a selection of pages from the 3 sketchbooks I used for the project.. :)

Bibliography

Assignment 3A for Design Studies asked us to use cross search and library resources to find appropriate journals and books related to the section we decided to focus on from the previous brainstorm. I chose to look at prisons environments initially but became more interested in crime prevention in relation to community policing so that is what i decided to investigate in this part of the assignment. I found it quite difficult to get hold of any relevant books online so all my findings are articles/journals!


Donnelly, P (1998) Residents' Efforts at Neighborhood Stabilization: Facing the Challenges of Inner-City Neighborhoods. Sociological Forum, Vol. 13, No. 2 pp. 189-213

I found this article interesting as it looks at community activism and how encouraging citizen participation in preventing crime is more effective than avoiding it and if communities work together they can make changes. The paper looks specifically at a communities response to an increase in crime in a "racially, and economically diverse neighborhood" who came together and made a plan to prevent certain types of crimes that were happening in their area.


Jackson, J (2007) Public confidence in policing - A neo-Durkheimian perspective. BRITISH JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY 47 (2): 214-233
This journal looks at how trust and confidence in the police are shaped by the moral values of communities. I find it interesting that the way in which communities are constructed affect the way in which trust can be built. It looks at how it is important that police should deal with the public in a fair and dignified way and how in doing this it allows communities to become more confident in their attitudes towards them.

Johnston, L (2003) From "pluralisation" to "the police extended family": discourses on the governance of community policing in Britain. International Journal of the Sociology of Law; 31 (3) pp.185-204
This journal is also useful for my chosen topic, it looks widely at community policing and how with government funding wardens can be placed in communities to create a "police extended family" and improve relationships between the public and local police. Having wardens allow a partnership to be created within the community with the police and allows improvements in crime and external environment to be undertaken.

Manzi, T (2005) Gated communities as club goods: segregation or social cohesion? Housing Studies; 20 (2) pp.345-359
I found this article interesting as it looks at how gated communities can prevent crime and be positive although they are normally seen in a negative light as they tend to intensify "social segregation". Gated communities in poorer areas can help to reduce crime instead of people just moving to "better" areas. It also looks at case studies and shows how if there is an increase in community participation it can contribute to preventing crime

Schneider, SR (1998) Overcoming barriers to communication between police and socially disadvantaged neighborhoods: a critical theory of community policing.CRIME LAW AND SOCIAL CHANGE 30 (4): 347-377
I also found this article very interesting, it looks at how important police relationships with socially disadvantaged neighborhoods (SDN's) is in crime prevention. It discusses how if police had a better relationship with minority groups in SDN then crime could be reduced. If community policing improves and their empathy towards SDN does too it can help to sustain a stronger relationship.

Weitzer, R (2004) Reforming the police: Racial differences in public support for change.CRIMINOLOGY 42 (2): 391-416
This article also appealed to me, it talks about public support for police reform and how police misconduct can affect confidence in policing. It looks at what types of people (including racial groups) most favor reform from the police and why. I find it very interesting that the police are occasionally the group that needs to change their behavior to build confidence as opposed to the communities themselves.

Oh, JH (2009) Aging neighborhood attachment, and fear of crime: testing reciprocal effects. JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY 37 (1): 21-40
I also found this article very relevant as it looks at how neighborhood attachments ("friendship, neighboring, social cohesion and trust, informal social control") affect the fear of crime. It focuses on the element of age and how this can affect fear of crime and neighborhood attachments. It suggests that if community relationships were stronger then the elderly would feel safer.


I also came across the website http://www.mypolice.org/ which is very relevent. It is a website which allows people to submit stories about experiences, good or bad, that they have had with the police. It could be very helpful for obtaining information from the public on how the police service can be improved and to see what exactly communities want from the police. It is a good way of improving the relationship between police and the general public. There is also a related blog http://mypolice.wordpress.com/ which allows people to see regular updates on the progress of the project.

My Top 5 Useful Websites.

For assignment 3B of the Design Studies blog we were asked to come up with 2 "Top 5" lists of website - 1 that has useful websites relating to my discipline (Graphic Design) and 1 that has useful websites relating to news and information outwith my discipline. To be honest I hadn't looked at a great deal of design related websites previous to this assignment and we were given a link to a tutorial webpage which was very helpful in providing links to helpful art, design and news related websites http://tinyurl.com/dhtp-library I realised that it can be very helpful to keep up to date not only with genral news but updates within design specifically aswell.


Top 5 Websites useful for keeping up-to-date with Graphic Design

1. www.designcouncil.org.uk
A helpful website that has reliable information on a range of topics relating to design. It contains current,factual information written by professional but is also student friendly. It also contains a section of information about how design can be applied to a range of current issues (crime, health care etc) which is very relevant. There is a specific section to the website that shows how graphic design improves businesses which I found intersting (this section can be found here - http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/About-Design/Design-Disciplines/Using-graphic-design-in-your-business/)

2. www.creativereview.co.uk
The tagline descibes this magazine website as "the best in visual communication" which is a good start for graphic designers! This website is very instant for design news and contains useful articles and reviews on various design topics. Is great for finding interesting blog entry's! Broad for all disciplines in art and design but has 'graphic design' and 'type/typography' sections that are most relevant for me.

3. www.dexigner.com
Also good for design related news and graphic design specifically. Helpful for current information on events and competitions within the design world!

4. www.variant.org.uk
Online magazine which covers art and culture in relation to 'broader social, political and cultural issues' useful for looking at art and design in relation to relevent current social issues things as designers we should keep up to date with.

5. www.positivespace.com
An interesting blog orientated website. Has a range of articles relating to graphics has some interesting examples of contemporary portfolio's. Very useful for seeing what is going on in the graphic design world in both an informative and visual sense.



Top 5 websites in relation to news and information

1. www.guardian.co.uk
Online newspaper with access to reliable news articles on a diverse range of worldly topics. Can gain access to old articles as well as the latest edition of the paper.

2. www.facebook.com
Popular social network website. I use this alot for keeping up to date and communicating with friends. Although used more for gossip than factual information it is still useful for passing on and gaining information from other people and making connections.

3. www.timesonline.co.uk
Another helpful online newpaper updated daily that allows you to keep up to date with current affairs so you can find out what important stuff is actually happening outside the studio!

4. www.bbc.co.uk/learning
Useful website for an array of learning resources which helps to build on knowledge on different topics with lots of links to other helpful online information/websites.

5. www.groups.google.com
Discussion group based website that offers access to discussions on many topics. Useful for getting opinions on a diverse range of subjects from lots of people.

Prisons.

After the brainstorm discussions for design studies, we were given a task to create a poster continuing one of the topics from the brainstorm. Since I initially looked into the Power of Context chapter of The Tipping Point I decided to carry that through. I was interested by the social context of prisons and how and if there is anything we can do to change or improve the current system and how prisoners react to current prison environments. I looked a little into service design and how this could be applied to creating a better system for prisons rehibilitation and to try and prevent so many re-offences after release.
Luckily there was a programme on tv whilst I was finishing off my poster about "america's toughest prisons". It was about a very tough prsion for young offenders, the prison used very strict boot camp style techniques, literally taunting and forcing physical activity on the prisoners until they were physically sick. Although this seems extreame you wouldnt want to go back to that and it might prevent re-offending. The prison was trying to teach the young offenders discipline and team work, if one of them slips up at all, they all pay and are punished equally. Although intimidating people in this way is so strict and one man said that prison makes you a "bigger stronger convict", it just teaches you to get more violent.

Name Generator

http://breadlinedesign.com/naming_machine/index.htm

This is a fun little website that generates design company names, someone recommended it to me to get a more interseting name for my blog :) I went with my second go Red Leopard Ltd as my first combination that came up was Evil Weasel Studios...not so catchy!

Concept over Craft?

I came across an interesting article today in the guardian about artist Damien Hirst, who has recently admitted he would not be on the concept beats craft side if he was initially talented enough to be a good painter. I find it quite amusing that Hirst has made a good living out of making pieces of conceptual 'modern art' that he agree's shouldn't really be classed as 'real art' at all. I do agree that preserving a dead animal in a display box shouldnt really be classed as great art because it doesnt really involve any true talent, despite whatever "concept" Hirst has put behind the pieces of this kind. I think that alot of "modern art" these days is a bit of a charade but on the other hand I think the honest talent of the 'old master' painters has been lost in the modern day. It is a shame though that he really wants his work to be compared with the great painters of the past but he is just simply not very good at painting! I think he probably should have kept this fact to himself however, because since Hirst is never going to be the great painter he desires to be he has gained all his money and recognition through what he is now claiming to be a mere replacement for art he simply isnt talented enough to produce!

here's the link to the article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2009/oct/26/damien-hirst-modern-art