Live/Competition Brief - Introduction

Today in this lecture we were given feedback on how the assessments from our previous project that we had just completed for our first project at university. We were told that overall that the assessment went really well, however there were a few pointers that we needed to consider for our next brief, which was to make sure that the document, which contained our research, ideas and development in was landscape. we were also told that it was very important to consider was where we placed the design in the document, as the design should stand out. However I always place my design towards the end because I find that I want to show the research that I have done before hand and the ideas and development that I did before getting to my final design. We told that this was very important to consider because we needed to make sure that the designs that we created were seen by the company or target audience that we were aiming towards, so that it would stand out and be easy to see by the target audience that I was aiming the design at.

The brief that were set in this lecture was to look at two different design competitions, which were YCN and RSA. When we were shown these design competitions, I was very intergued by what the briefs and companies would be taking part in these design competitions. I then found out that there were 16 Briefs for the YCN competition, the deadline for this is 23rd March 2017 and there were 12 Briefs for the RSA competition, which had a deadline of 8th March 2017. This meant that there was 28 Briefs overall that I could choose from to look at for my next project, I thought that this was very interesting because I thought that it had a good variety of briefs that I could look at expanding and looking at for my project. I was really excited to look at the briefs and I had done a YCN brief before, whilst in college but hadn't actually taken part in the design competition. I thought that this competitiom will help me to boarden and develop on the skills that I have already learnt and need improving on. The deadline for this project though that we have been given at University will run up until chritsmas, however we could still work on it after christmas. Although we were advised that it would best round it off by christmas, as we will be set more briefs before and after christmas.

To move forward in this project I need to look at all of the briefs and see, which of them interest me the most I can then look into them a lot further and start to create several different ideas for the briefs that I have chosen.

We then looked at a previous students work who was a YCN winner in 2013, that went to the University of Huddersfield known as Fung Yee Wai. She won the competition for the Fedrigoni brief. This brief focused on inspiring printers throughout the United Kingdom, to work with a wide variety of Fedrigoni paper that was on offer. I found her work very interesting, as she created different types of food from the different types of Fedrigoni paper that was on offer.

Reference- https://www.hud.ac.uk/schools/artdesignandarchitecture/student-work/fungyeewai-graphicdesign.php

Another example that we looked at was Zaiul Haqu who was again from the University of Huddersfield, but was the winner of th RSA design awards in 2015. I found there work very interesting and very creative because I think that the animation which they have created is very bold and stand out and makes a statement about the message that they're trying to tell the world. I think that this is very important because you need to make sure that you can get your message across to the target audience because you want them to connect with them.

 

Reference - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TISnBSkcRak

 

We then watched a short documentary, which was about RSA Design from the students point of view. Where they told there experience and stories about the process and winning the awards in the design competition. We were told that research is very important to work out the target audience that we will be aiming towards. I think that this will be a consideration when doing my project. We were also told that doing these competitions or winning them could boost our CV's, which would be a great advantage, however I do feel that there is a lot of competition out there.

To start off with for this Live Brief, we should start to look at three briefs one from the YCN and the other from the RSA and generate ideas, and moodboards of how I could develop my ideas even further. We will then be able to talk about them and look at them in more detail and see which of the three we would like to take forward further for our final design piece and enter into the live competitions that we have been told about.

I found that this lecture very useful and very exciting because I think a live brief will be a good opportunity to do. I am really looking forward to this project.

Sound Visualisation

Within this lecture we looked at sound visualisations and the graphical responses that are used for electronic sound.

Graphical Responses to electronic sound

• Notation -  Marks on Paper
• Frequency and Oscillation
• Harmonics and Vibration
• Digital Responses

Notation - Marks on Paper

We were shown a quote by Nikola Testa in Electronics which was:

"If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration". 

We then looked at Telegraphy in 1840 and people known as Joseph Henry, Alfred Vail and Samuel Morse. The one that we looked into further was Samuel Morse who created the Morse Code, which was the first graphical representation of sound. ( - . ) Ticker tape links under visualisation. We were told that Telegraphy + Morse Code = Early Text Messaging. 

We then looked at Joseph Schillinger who was a Mathematic notation - Bach. We were told that he brought his maths to sound/notation and that he also experimented with skylines and created a piece known as the Skyline Melody. After we had done this we looked at the musician called John Cage who created Song Books (1958), his work looked more like morse code. He created books of these scores, known as Fontana Mix (1958), Visual Score (1960) and Music for airports (1978) - Brian Eno Electronic Music. 

Muzak is the type of the music that is played in a hotel or played in a lift, which is known for culture and was very revolutionary. He is also a design that went to design school. 

Frequency and Oscillation 

Oscilloscopes - Heart Machine Line

The first person that we looked at for this section was Karl Ferdinand Braun (1987), who was a german inventor and contributed to the development of television and radio technology. We then looked at Leon Theremin, who was a Russian that lived in New York City. We watched a video called Leon Theremin playing his own instruments, I found that this clip was very interesting and very different because we hadn't seen anything like this before in Graphic Design. We then looked at Mary Ellen Bute, who is connected with Leon Theremin, Oskar Fischinger and Joseph Schillinger, we found that she worked with Dr Ralph Potter and Bell Telephone Labs, that moods contrasts. 

We also looked at Abstronics (1954) known as Abstract Electronics. We were also shown WMP Visualisation, that is mainly used using the programme Window Media Player which creates a waveform that is a generator by what is being played in the programme. This is not hackable. 

Harmonics and Vibration

Within this section we looked at many artists, the first that we looked into was Robert Hooke (1680) who experimented with Slate and Flour and a Violin Stick. We also looked at Ernst Chladni (1787), who is best known for the Discoveries of Sound. Another person that we looked at was Hans Jenny (1967) who was best known for Cymatics, he did lots of experiments with plates, we watched a clip from a documentary that was an hour long. We talked about 37, 44 Hz from Cymatics. 

Another person that we looked at within this lecture was Mandala, where we talked about the subject of Hayagriva Sand Mandala. We then moved onto Nigel John Stanford, who was also known for Cymatics. Nigel is also known for Science vs Music 2014, which we watched a clip from. In this piece of work we were shown all the features that we had from the start of the lecture, which I found was very interesting and very creative. 

Digital Responses

Within the digital responses section of the lecture we looked into Adobe Audition and Audio Waveforms. Cubase -  Digital Music Sequencing that helps you to write music. Another part that we looked at was Max MSP, which is a Node Based Editing, it is like one John Cage's abstracts. Expressive Language. We then watched two clip called Remnant 2010 - Small Hands, Jason Payne - Geometric on Vimeo.