I don't have a monkey costume!

I find, you can do almost anything with your own hair.
Like that Lady Gaga bloke.

Last Minute Monkey Ears
Rachel Howe
Dec. 2009

What it all Comes Down to

It's hard to tell any more, but I want my final degree project to explore the idea of Subconscious Reliance, people or forces that we rely on without consideration or gratitude.
I particularly am interested in the idea of the hidden worker.
There are several angles I will approach this from, I think;
The Invisible (ie. electricity)
The Natural (ie. gravity, earthworms)
The Hidden (ie. night shift workers)

This post was really just to remind myself that I need to be constantly thinking about this.
Rather than just taking each workshop week as a separate, disconnected activity.

Worst 99p I've Ever Spent...

Best 99p I've Ever Spent...

Insert Egg Pun Here>>>>

Last week we had a joint debate project with the BA Design second years. The topic my group was given was "Design Should Not Serve Industry", which went against a group with the opposite statement. We took this and focused on the argument "Design Should Not Serve Industry, it Should Lead it".
Throughout the week we designed various means of communicating and solidifying our argument. Number 1 was a propaganda flyer. Number 2 was an object that had to embody our debate. We wanted an object that would highlight how industry lead design has lulled the consumer into accepting the familiar, the mundane. It had to be something that would not only cause people to question it, but also question why they were questioning it. And it should probably be a bit gross.
So we set about dying some eggs...


Like this...


Green eggs no ham.


Wanted to see if we could create a giant egg yolk...



Just a little shout out to the New Cross Gate NHS Walk-in who were very generous in supplying us with syringes and needles for the egg dying process. Lovely people.

Design Cafe (anag. signeD faCe)

Yesterday, me, Matt, Mike and Sara started up the Goldsmiths Design Café.
We put a lot of effort in and I think it really showed. It looked great, the food was amazing (home made soup courtesy of Mike, home made bakewell tart courtesy of Matt) and we got some really positive comments.
We are raising money for our degree show at the end of the year and so far have got off to a good start.

What Rhymes With Worm...

Finale

Colour charting cont...

Colour charting

Colours. Look at the colours.

Painting = Progress

What's funny is that usually, I have around a month to develop, produce and get sick to death of a project to the point I hate it more than anything I've ever done in my life. However, I have actually managed to achieve this within a 4 day period.

Although, I did research what message the colour of a rose carries and it was quite interesting.
Here is a sample:
Red Love, Beauty, Courage and Respect, Romantic Love, Congratulations, "I Love You", "Job Well Done", Sincere Love, Respect, Courage & Passion

Pink Appreciation, "Thank you", Grace, Perfect Happiness, Admiration, Gentleness, "Please Believe Me"

Yellow Joy, Gladness, Friendship, Delight, Promise of a new beginning, Welcome Back, Remember Me, Jealousy, "I care"

Orange Desire, Enthusiasm

Lavender Love at first sight, Enchantment

Blue The unattainable, the impossible

So this has actually given my project some kind of substance. I'm just not sure how relevant it really is. Or if it's just plain dumb.
Oh well, truck on.

Sexy Cigarettes

Eugh, no thanks.

Oooh, how appealing and delicious.

Lippy

I have stuck to my guns over the mark making project.
The design concept for this project is based around lipstick marks acting as a messaging tool. When they are left on a mans collar, they say "I'm sleeping with your husband". When they are left on a wine glass in a bar, they say "I'm here to meet a man". (All opinions and conclusions are those of the blogee and in no way reflect fact or truth).
From there, I wanted to look at sending specific messages through different mediums in the lipstick. The idea I ended on was to design lipstick that's colour is specific to a certain meaning and then if stamped on to something, passes on that message.
Sooooo, that's what I'm gonna do.
Maybe take the colour from flowers, I know the colour of roses has a certain relevance.
Something like red=love, orange=friendship, yellow=goodbye. I will have to research that a bit more thoroughly/at all.

THAT is ugly.

Well, my direction has changed a lot over the weekend.
I meandered down the route of nature, metamorphosis, growth etc. but eventually I got so lost in all the absolute bullshit I found myself trying to rationalise that I had to about turn.
SO, I started to think about what I literally found to be an ugly thing. And I ended up at smoking. (Not to be confused with I ended up smoking. Although I did buy my first ever pack of cigarettes. And got IDed).
Then I started to question how smoking (therefore cigarettes) could be made uglier.
By making the actual cigarette ugly, you would potentially put people off smoking, which is not an ugly thing, it's a positive thing...
So I am thinking that creating an appealing, 'beautiful' cigarette would result in an even uglier design. WOULD IT???
Because I now only have 4 days to rationalise, design and produce this (plus the other brief), we'll say it would.

Blogging feels productive.

I still don't bloody know.

Lipstick on Your Collar

Matt has been kissing most things within a kissable distance today.
As well as being a bit odd, this has also been a bit of an inspiration towards the mark making project. Lipstick marks have quite a sleazy connotation, lipstick on a collar, on a wine glass. They are evidence of an affair, proof it wasn't dinner for one last night.
This could be an interesting direction to consider. Accusative mark making.

Making your Mark

The second project I am considering over the next week is focused on mark making. How marks are made, what process occurred to put them there, what affect it has had on its surroundings...
Using footprint as an example, I want to look at how an incidental mark can illustrate a place and how I could use this process as a design technique or tool.

Walking through uni, I noticed there are heaps of scars and marks on the walls from previous décor/careless maneuvering. I have absolutely no idea where I'm going to go with this, but they were almost like memory marks, a record of what had been there before.

Maybe I will make a photo album out of them. How sweet.

What is 'Ugly'?

I DON'T BLOODY KNOW.
I'm trying to dissect what is standardly considered beautiful to create something ugly.
I am finding it a lot more difficult than I thought. My original concept was to take something I consider beautiful and change an aspect of it (eg the material/shape) to transform it into something beautiful.
As a sort of model of this idea, I have been looking at squares as the ultimate beauty. They are symmetrical. They are perfect. They are structured.
So by slight distortion can a square become ugly?

The outcome has ended up almost as a comment on beauty, or at least our perception of it.
Considering beauty from the Cleopatra complex.
To be honest, I don't think she was all that.

Past

Collage; The Art of Those Who Can't Draw That Good.

Devon is a Place on Earth

Thought I would share a couple of pics from my summer in Devon.

I feel these select few completely capture the essence. Eau de Devon.

Time Out

I know this isn't amazing design work, I NEVER SAID IT WAS.

But it is going to be in Timeout magazine.

So there.

I haven't just been frollicking through fields and eating pasties back in Devon you know.

Carriage of Curiosity...

And here are the final photos from the Hendricks event I designed for, with Bompas & Parr.

It all looks pretty amazing, makes all the scalpel blisters seem worthwhile.

There's more victorian clip-art than you can shake a stick at, but I do love the Hendricks brand identity. I thoroughly enjoyed this project, this style of design is one I can very much see myself doing in future.

Or at least hope to.

Also, Frazzles are AWESOME.

Frazzled

I have an archive of re-designed Frazzle packets.

Explanation Operation

So this is what we did with bag full o' dog toys.
They were used in Bompas & Parr's stall at the V&A Village Fete, over the weekend. Their stand was comprised of a live game of Operation.
This involved shoving your hand into Harry (Parr's) 'stomach' and retrieving a food item (see; dog toys) that he had eaten that day.


Inside each of these was a prescription from the doctor that announced whether you had 'won' or not. (These are the little things I designed)

PHOTOS BY CHARLOTTE HARRISON

When I asked how it was all set up under the operation table I was told that it was just magic.
I believe this, but the inside of his stomach did have a distinctly jelly-ish consistency to it.

All in all it was a fun evening.
I won a tea bag.

Evîdénce

Really just so I can say, "look mum, this is why I haven't got a job that actually pays me yet."

This does make me a bit proud though. The only other time I've seen my name in print is when I was in one of my middle school's Christmas concert programmes.
As 'Flautist No.2'.

That might have to do

When I was interning at Dazed & Confused, they asked me to have a go at designing the layout for the Fashion Forward piece (in this months edition).
So I did.
I doubt whether they will have used any of it, but I certainly gave it a shot. And they said they'd put my name in the masthead (whether it's the right name or not is yet to be discovered...). Pretty exciting though.
Any way, these first 3 are the ones they were the most positive about.
In a "that might have to do" kind of way.




And so follow the rest of my attempts...

Continued...

Continued...