Seminar #7: Keywords and Literature - Polina Zioga

I found that this lecture was quite interesting because we told that we should make sure that choosing the correct keywords and Literature within our presentations and Essay's were very important. The first part that we did in this lecture was talk about what we looked at in the previous lecture. Where we looked at the Essay, the brief, the essay structure and the visual appendix that we need to produce by February 2017. The first thing that we were told to do, was to try and pick out the keywords within our title's from our presentation that we had created and the topic that we were going to talk about. My title for my presentation was 'Title Sequences between the 1960's and Now'. I thought that the most important keywords and Numbers within this were 'Title Sequences' and '1960's and Now'. We were told that we should try to look at how author's may use other words to present what the are saying, for examples Openings, Opening Sequences.

We then moved on and talked a literature review. A literature review is a critical presentation and discussion of the main topic you are looking into.

What does a Literature Review do?
A literature review is used to tell the reader that you have got an idea about what you have read into. Even looking at online sources, it tells the reader you have a good indication of what is going on. A literature review is how to find the main works, of the subject that you are looking into. This means that the work you have produced has a important effect on the succeeding development on the subject. We were told that it is very important to make sure that we reference everything even on the date that we used it and we should not also use the internet but using books may help us even more. It also shows them the knowledge and understanding that you have established. The varieties of the approach that you have taken to get to your final outcome.

A Literature Review Structure

1. The first thing we should do is tell them the outline of the topic you have looked at.
2. The next is to give a brief explanation of the history and give several definitions of this.  
3. After we have done this you can then start to work on the main body text, which is the main ideas, writings and practice you have researched into. 
4. The final part to do is to present our research question and find out what you need to do to push this further, to find the answer.

It is very important that we make notes, to everything that you read because this will help you in the future and back up the point that you are to make. It helps the reader to show us your understanding of the topic and subject field. Another point is to keep a copy of the resource, whether this is a scan to keep a note of the resources you have looked at. Make sure that you reference the websites, books, articles that you use. There is also three different types of literature, these are: Primary, Secondary and Tertiary. We found that we need to make sure we have more primary, less secondary and even less tertiary within our work. 

I found that this seminar was quite useful, as I found that keywords and literature reviews are very important when creating an essay and presentation. I going to keep this in mind, when writing my presentation and essay. 

Seminar #4: Assessment Preparation - Polina Zioga

The first thing that we did was look at the assessment preparation checklist that we need to use to see about our presentation that we have to produce about my chosen subject. We also looked at Design + Content + Delivery, and recapped on the previous lecture that we had done with Polina and talked about we were should be with our presentation. Polina then talked about what we should include in our presentation, which is to have:

• 1 Slide with your Title, URL, Name / Surname and Course
• 2-7 Slides which will depend on your visual communication design, this will include the Background and relevant examples either text or/and images, however you need to avoid videos as these take too long to present. 
• 1 Slide for my main Research Question
• 1 Slide for my References and Bibliography

The most important fact that we need to consider for this presentation is to REHEARSE, because you need to know what you talking about and presenting in your assessment. Something else that is important is make notes about what you would like to say in your presentation, as this may help you throughout the assessment, but an important is to not read from your notes so rehearsing is very important. 

Since the previous lecture I have been working on my presentation by researching into my chosen subject, which is Title Sequence Designs between the 1960's to Now and how they have changed? For the past week I have been looking at Title Designs that have been produced in the 60's by the designer known as Saul Bass and title sequence that have been created in the present day by the company called Elastic. I also had to research into the background behind Title Designs and how they established, I found out that they started off in the early 1900's. 

I found that this seminar helped me because it allowed me to speak to Polina and receive feedback on how I could improve my presentation. To receive my feedback I sat with and talked through my rough draft of the presentation that I had produced. The feed back which I received was very helpful because she told me that I had quite a bit of writing and I need to summarise and be brief on the background of the title design, as I had a lot information on this which she thought was too much. She also said that I should pick example of 1 design from each era, which is 60's and now, because she thought that I wouldn't have a lot of time to present all of the examples that I had picked. The examples that I have chosen to work with is Saul Bass's The fact of Life and the new James Bond film Spectre.

Furthermore into this I have thought about what I am going to research for each of my pages and work with this plan to research into my chosen subject this will be:

• Slide 1 - Title, URL, Name / Surname and Course
• Slide 2 - Brief Summary of the Background and Literature review of Title Design
• Slide 3 - Research into the Saul Bass (Title Designer from the Past)
• Slide 4 - An example of his work (A Fact Of Life)
• Slide 5 - Research into a Title Designer or Company in the Now
• Slide 6 - An example of their work (James Bond Spectre)
• Slide 7 - A Timeline of how technology has changed throughout Film and Title designs
• Slide 8 - My Main Research Question
• Slide 9 - References and the Bibliography

I am also going think about any additional pages that I could add to my presentation. 

Seminar #3: The Research Question - Polina Zioga

Following on from the previous seminar that I had with Polina, I had to research further into my chosen subject that I wanted to look into for my Presentation. the first part in this seminar was that we were told that our blogs are like an electronic and digital notebook or sketchbook that we can use to write notes where we can look back at for future reference.

Within this seminar we looked at the next stage of the presentation, which was the research question. The research question is the question that will develop into questions and answers of how to answer your question and subject that you will be looking into. So what are the important points that the research question is used for?

• It is used to Narrow down your investigation, which is important. 
• It reminds you about the subject that your looking at, which recycle terms and words.
• It also reveals how you will investigate your research subject

We need to summarise our subject to find out the background and the basics of the subject that we looking into. I am interested in.... 

We need to follow a process to find out what our research question will be, to do this you need to look at the Research subject then the Research title, after this the Background and Literature Review of the subject that you have chosen. You should then able to think about a suitable Research question that you will have to consider answering. We are not the same and we need to make more comparisons, this is an important factor. We told that we need to gather relevant images for your chosen subject and compare these to others, so to do this I am going to look into my subject even further to discover facts and the background of what Film Design is. I had to think about what part of Film Design that I want to research into further, as film design is a really board idea. I then thought about Title Sequences and how they have changed from the past to now. I thought about whether there is similarities or if there is differences between the two, also has the technology that has used for this affected the way that the title sequences are produced now compared to the past. I then came up with my research question from these thoughts and ideas, which is: 

"How has technology affected Title Design in Films between the 60's and Now?"  

I thought that this was really good research question, as there is a lot of points that I could look into for this question. For my next seminar I have to make sure that I have a draft of my presentation to look at, so if there isn't anything I need to improve on I can. I found that this seminar was very useful because I was allowed think about the subject and I finally have an idea about what I need to produce and the subject that I need to research. 

Tuesday 4th October 2016 - Studio Seminar 11:15 - 12:15

The first thing that we did was hand our print outs to the tutor, so that other people would be able to see what we would be doing for our project. Try and remove any blocks, so that you can go past the stumps and work towards our ideas. Don’t worry too much about the purpose at the moment, because it will come to you like that.

Do we need a research and development file?

I think that this important, however we were told to do this at the end because the project and final design is the most important thing to do. The InDesign document is the presentation, there should be a bit of research, evidence, development and final products. We then talked about what would happen if you were in the industry and how quickly you would have to create a final outcome.

I then was told feedback about the mood board that I handed in. Jay told me that it is a very interesting project that I have chose to do and that I should always consider layers for example the layers like my interest or things that make up me as individual. Like the music that I like, my favourite place, my home town that people won’t know about me and that makes me different.

I found that this seminar session was very useful to me because it allowed me to think about what I need and could do to expand this project even further.

Seminar #1 Introduction - Polina Zioga

The first thing that we did in this seminar was to look at Unilearn, where I could find the Module Guide Book which I have already printed off and placed in a folder. The theory as practice section is split into two where the theory blog will be assessed by a Presentation and the other will be a 2500 word essay. The module guide book tells us about the deadlines that will be happening throughout the year for the Theory as practice Module.

What is 'Theory As Practice' for you?

This is to start to learn how to research the history of Graphic Design and Animation, also what other people do. This year we are going to be focusing on ourselves and the path that we are going to take.

What is Research?

What - Theme/Research the subject
Why - Context/The background and the Literature Review
How - the approach/methodology and the methods that you use. How will you approach the subject or the piece of work
What - What is the Outcome/Results and the conclusions. Also what have you learnt throughout the project.

I found out that Research leads to Originality and research is part of the professional practice.

Year 1 - Foundation
Year 2 - Transformation
Year 3 - Professionalism
Final Year - Independence and Originality

We then looked at a quote by George Lucas, I found that this quote is very inspiring and tells you that you can accomplish anything that you want, and technology plays a major part in this, as it is changing, which is making design stand out more and become better than it ever was.

We were told that all creativity at all levels is just technology; it is fundamentally just research. We then looked at an example of a campaign, where we were given the task to use the research method to write down your answers to the questions that we need to answer. The example that we as a group chose was from the red Dot Award called Hear The Human Story. Here is what we came up with:

What - What is the subject, the theme? 

It is a tv and online documentary and a campaign that puts humanity back into the news. 

Why- How does it relate to the clients needs?

It is for people to understand that the company goes beyond the headlines of the global news to find real human stories that do matter.

How - How did the designers approach the assignments?

They went to visit them, there were six people in total from 6 different countries. They deliberately directed it in a elegant cinematic style. 

What - What was the final result and achievement? 

Reaching thousands of people online and millions via the TV, this campaign did not only position a brand, it injected humanity back into the news and gave a voice to those who are often forgotten about by other platforms and networks.

We were then told for our next seminar session with Polina that we need to research into topic of our choice that we were going to create a presentation about. We also needed to think about why and how we could investigate into our chosen subject. I found that this seminar session was very interesting and because it was something new. 

First Studio Seminar - 11:15 - 12:15

This was my first studio seminar of second year. I found that this session was ok because I still hadn't got an idea for my studio project. The first point that we looked at was how different are we from others, thinking about this point in more depth I think that this point is very interesting because people are very different to each other. We were then told that this year is very important and its about us as individuals, which got me thinking about the previous point that we had just thought about and what describes and features do we have as an individual and what makes us as an individual stand out from the other people. So what do I want to do? What sort of career path do I want to take after university. What area would I like to do?

We then looked at Autopoiesis, which is Self Making and re identifying myself, it means using different languages and self identity. After this we talked about the idea of yourself or self and how the world sees you or how you see the world, I thought that this was a very important point and we should always think about this point because it could mean that we see the world as we do, but other people see it very differently and we should always consider the different ways that we could design, to make it fit with the target audience that we are aiming it towards and make sure that it works.

Who are you? That is a very important question that we are going to be thinking about this year because we need to find out what sort of designer we are going to be. We were told that we should explore as many different styles as possible this year to help us narrow our choices of styles to see which we are good at and those that we aren't so good at. Another important point that we were given was to always use a sketchbook to do our ideas because they are very useful and finally document everything that was said because we will be able to look back at this.

I found that this seminar was good because it got me to think about what I could do for the brief that we had been given, as I was still stuck for an idea before this session. However I thought that I still needed extra help to work out what I should do? 

Monday Afternoon Seminar - Essay Part 2

Within this seminar we looked into the essay that we are writing even further, by discussing the subject that we were going to be looking at within our essays. The first part we did in this seminar was to look at an artist and inventor called Brendan Dawas, where we were shown some examples of his work, which were The Happiness Machine, Flippin' Big Remote, Doris Le Bot and EE- Digital Cities Portraits. Once we had looked at Brendan Dawas we then moved on to look at our topic of the essay question that we had chosen to write about. Mine was Brand vs Anti Brand, I firstly decided to look at the subject of Supermarkets that battle to get more people to come to the store, using different branding techniques such as Tv Adverts and Posters. Another point that I thought about looking into for my essay was to look at Graphic Designers and Animators to help promote their business to the target audience.

Other points that I have decided that I am going to look at for my essay research will be to look at Tesco's vs Aldi and small brands for Anti Brand, such as Cooperative, Costcutter and Premier. I am also going to look at Tesco Adverts in general and christmas, the brand guarantee, opening hours, advertisement e.g billboards and posters. Once I have done this I will then look into the aldi adverts for christmas and in general and the designers that create the designs. Also the opening hours, advertisements and designers. Where I will then be able to look at smaller companies designs that will effect the big supermarkets, also how brands have changed over the years and how have the designs and media over the years been used to attract more people to come to their local store. I am also going to look at the different types of shopping by looking at delivery boxes that are used to deliver your shopping in. The final point that I thought about looking at for this essay that I am going to be writing is who the top supermarket was and how similar the tv adverts were in 2015?

Monday Afternoon Seminar - Essay

Within this seminar we talked about the essay in more detail, I found that this seminar was very helpful, as it allowed to me to look and choose a essay question that I wanted to answer. I found that choosing an essay question was quite difficult as I wasn't sure, which one that I wanted to choose, this was because I had never been given an essay to write before, I found that this made me really nervous about writing the essay because I wasn't sure whether it would go well or not. However I did find the seminar very helpful, as it boosted my confidence on the essay that I going to be writing.

The question that I decided to take forward to answer for my essay was question number 3, which was about Branding vs Anti-Branding. The question that we were given to answer was:

"Brand versus Anti-Brand. How have graphic designer or animators worked with or against brands and to what effects?"

From this I had to think about what I could write about, as I had to choose a subject to focus the essay on, we were told that it could be something that you are interested in and take a branding perspective on it. Other points that we were told to think about when writing our essay's were to think about the things that have been used/reused? Look into anti-branding and think about the big brother eye for example and how it has been used for logos. Also branding is about our own belonging in some aspects, like how have our hair.  Branding is opinionated and this can be down to the age range etc. We were also told that we could look into McDonalds as a case study, or a big company and use this as a main focus point. We could look at how it has changed over the years from the branding to the menu choices. Another part that we could look at is Adbusters for Anti-branding and how they use McDonalds things to show them up. We were shown that companies pay lawyers to protect there brand these days, which shows that this has changed how the branding world is now than it used to be. 

I thought about how I could look into TV Series, my example for this was to look at the song that had been used for the Pretty Little Liars theme song in the opening sequence. I could look at how the song was sung by a band, but was then used for the theme song. From this you would be able to recognise and think a lot more about the TV Show rather than the band that originally sung the song because the show is very popular and could be recognised anywhere in the world. I also thought about looking into the company Marks and Spencer and how design companies that compete with each other or against each other with supermarkets. For example Tesco, Sainsbury's, Aldi and more. I thought about I looking at the christmas adverts, as I could focus on one but expand out and looking into more. 

Seminar - Essay

Within this seminar, we were told about what we should bring to Friday's studio session, which was to bring your idea about what you could create for eight of the tracks on unilearn. We were told to make a plan and include what techniques you want to use. We were also told that next Wednesday session would be about how to write an essay. For the next lecture we had to look at all three text by next Monday's seminar, which were Culture/Subculture, Branding and Anti-branding and Prequel/Sequel. For this task we had to deconstruct them all by printing them off and making notes about each of the articles. We were also told that for our essay, we would have to look at our own references by either reading an article or watching a documentary or more. The first part that I need to do for this essay was to choose a question that I want to work with. We were also told that we should use on the one hand and on the other hand, we should look at names of people that you haven't heard of. Another important point that we need to look at for this essay is the structure and the layout.

I think that this seminar has been very useful, as it is very helpful on what I should do when writing my essay.