Assignment 4

On a more alternate route from assignment 3, we are asked this time to engage with one individual and to interview them on a chosen question. This field of research was more up my street than being analytical with an overall service such as the Mecca Bingo posted previously.

Although the chosen interview candidate had to be someone I rarely or do not even know, I feel made things that little bit more exciting as I could overall reflect and identify any similarities between them and myself. Using the interview question, 'What object do people treasure the most? Why?..... I then developed this into 9 related questions to get the most out of my candidate as possible.

1 - What is it?
2 - What does it look like?
3 - What does it do?
4 - Who do you trust with it?
5 - Who got you it?
6 - where did you get it?
7 - When did you get it?
8 - Why is it most valuable to you?
9 - Why do you have it?

Firstly, I  recorded the answers I would have written if being asked the question and the results are as follows:

1 - My Volkswagen polo
2 - It is a silver  08 Volkswagen polo MATCH with 3 doors, alloy wheels and slightly tinted windows.
3 - Its get me from point A to point B/ drives
4 - I only trust my family with the car
5 - My father got me it
6 - I got it at the Arnold Clark dealership on Crow Road in Glasgow
7 - I got it in Summer 2009
8 - It is most valuable to me as it is the most expensive thing I own and if I ever damaged it or lost it etc, my dad would probably kill me.
9 - I have it to travel around places, to get to work and to get me from Glasgow to Dundee


MIND MAP:

 I then chose to interview a guy on my flatmates course Adam and his answers are as follows.

1 - His old guitar
2 - It is a 'Woods of Bolton' sanded classical guitar
3 - It plays the most 'beautiful music ever' and makes him very happy inside
4 - He only trust those who are capable of playing a guitar well
5 - It used to be his dads guitar before it was passed down
6 - Found it in the attic
7 - Got it when he was 10 years of age
8 - It is most valuable as it has been more of an education adventure as his dad has taught him things on it and it is not the most pricey guitar in the world which also makes it special.
9 - It makes him happy. He also keeps ahold of it as the songs he has played on it reminds him of certain/ special memories.

Adam's answers came to a shock to me as a few of them had a more personal and emotional meaning. For example, question 3 makes me think that his guitar is a very well made classical guitar,... but that might not necessarily be true. He identified before that the guitar was a very old beaten up guitar the he personally sanded it to make it his own. The sound from it may be the most horrific sound ever!!... but the fact that it is his and he has personalized it to be his own might make the 'most beautiful music ever' in his eyes only.
The idea the guitar was passed down from his dad presents that it may be a family air lume. The guitar creates a connection and family bond as each member passes it down as well as teaching songs along with it.
Finally, the excitement Adam gets when he plays it, I feel, is the most important aspect to consider. The songs he plays and learns, reminds him of certain times and happy memories he will hold on to forever.
Lastly, the

Overall, I feel my interviewing technique worked well due to the structure in which I wrote and asked the questions. My candidate never felt under pressure whilst being asked the questions, which I hope made my interview very calmed and relaxed. I most definitely will be using this strategy to develop my design work in the very near future.

Friends of the Earth Broadsheet

Myself and the rest of year 2 graphics have been given as a new assignment of the second semester to research and investigate given charities. Carrying on in old graphics tradition, we were to pick the charities from a hat to determine the workload for the rest of the semester. Unsure at the time and still unsure now wether I was lucky enough to have been given the 'Friends of the Earth' charity.

The brief has been divided into 3 parts consisting of a moodboard, an A2 broadsheet and a 3d typographic model which has to eventually be presented in an exhibition on the 18th of March. Whilst researching (through moodboard) the mass amounts of campaigns and rights in which the Friends of the Earth organisation is part of, made things difficult to narrow down an element to focus on. Environmental justice, I feel plays a very large role within the works and priorities of the organisation, especially throughout the Friends of the Earth Tayside which is the most local group to me.

The images below present the final 2 broadsheets that I am still deliberating over.

Horrible beer, great advert

Carling have released once again an older commercial from about 2007. The originality and vague relevance to the beer itself, I feel, is what makes it soo good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7AM49svaGQ&feature=related

Assignment 2 - images

Assignment 2 was a fun and pretty simple continuation from the previous assignment when looking/analysing photographs. The main focus within the images was most importantly about what images say/don't say and how/what texts portray the meanings. The topic was still a relation back to the theme of semiotics previously explored in semester 1. 

As this assignment was also a group project, I decided to keep in contact with the girl I met throughout assignment 1 as I felt we communicated and overall worked very together. The jist of the project was to basically pick three random images (text free) and to present them to a group of non art related or design studies students. We used www.sxc.hu and clicked on the 'Randomizer' link to produce us with images neither of us had any relation to. The chosen students were then asked to come up with a story from the three images. The three images could be used in any order whatsoever and could be the weirdest and craziest story ever as long as the 3 images were related in some sort of way. 

After experiencing a wide range of feedback, myself and my partner added a forth image and a word to go along with it. Using this material, we then chose a story of our own in which we hoped the viewers could then come up with the same or as similar of a story as possible.

the images are as follows...

Our main topic was the idea of the time passing quickly through life and the added word 'four' at the bottom was to relate to the four seasons within each year.

I chose to ask my flatmates to write me a story each as they all study different courses and share separate interests from one another which I felt could bring an interesting result.....

Eamon Keane - 3rd year Law student

- The story is about a guy going on a walk one winter. He was old. He was reminded of a summer he spent in the Caribbean. When he thought back on all these years, he realised how much time had gone by.......and for the first time in his life, he realised that he was dying of age and the image coming to his head was the leaves dying on Autumn trees. He gazed out on the landscape and realised there is four seasons in life and he is now entering the autumn of his existence. 

Eamonn Mccann - 3rd year Dentist

- The story is one much similar to Bernards watch. There is a man who has the gift of time travel. He is an adventurous and very quiet young chap who seeks for new experiences. His most favourite thing to do is to time travel throughout the four seasons to pick up on new discoveries. 

James Kinane - 2nd year Medicine student

I hear there is four seasons. My favourite thing to do in Winter is ski and the beach in summer. In Autumn I like to look at the pretty leaves.

For an experiment I also asked my flat mate Ross Bloomer who is a 3rd year Illustration student, to see if he could come up with anything more creative or if his intake on these images matches the stories of students in other course sectors. 

- The story is about a guy who felt he never had enough time in the world. 4 seasons past, he noticed the leaves changing colour and longed for a day where he could live in an island where time did not exist.