Exercise 1 - Tangrams
Tangrams are a great way of pulling shapes together and relying on the imagination to morph them into an object. the class exercise developed shapes into 5 categories including face, action hero, vehicle, animal and appliance. the only rules were, each shape had to be touching at some point and no shape was able to overlap another.
this first tangram falls into the vehicle category. as a vehicle i chose to maximise the use of triangles as flying saucers, so in other words its a fleet of vehicles. the closest triangle is depicted as beaming up an object.
this tangram is representative of a snapping turtle.
the appliance was probably the toughest of all, however, in respect to the opening slide of a penis carving, i decided to manipulate the shapes into a ladies bedside toy.
my fat action hero
and a sophistocated action hero. james bond perhaps?
and last but not least, the face! sort of looks like a collared shirt with a tie. but i was aiming for a panda.
In-Class Exercise 2 - Tribal Mapping
Mind mapping was an interesting way of discovering the attributes and values of each of the group members, and also about myself. Some which were typical, stupid things, however, we did delve deeper and found attributes that would probably help us more with the exercise.
From the mind map, we formulated out paragraph which read:
" As a group of four guys, a diverse range of values and interests plague each individual. Collectively, these values appear to be sparcely related, however, they can be grouped to represent out emotional, physical and mental qualities. Working together we aim to create an environment which uphols sustainable, profitable, original and impulsive design, while making sure sexual needs are always satisfied. However, not with each other.
From the paragraph we shortened it further to the single sentence:
"Each individual f this tribe brings a unique and forward thinking stance."
the ultimate word of choice:
"Forward"
Which translated into our symbol shown below.
individually, i contributed to the mind map the following words:
-mythology
-rofl
-honesty
-abstinence
-good sex
from there i, pulled together the ideas from the mind map and made the paragraph
In Class Exercise 3
Using symbols from the wingdings typeface, we were asked to recreate the story of humpty dumpty. This story follows the life of a spy and how he failed his mission ultimately resulting in his death.
In Class Exercise 4 - Road Signs
Developing road signs was an interesting concept. It actually required me to think about the life of a road sign, what a road sign does, and how road signs use simple graphics/symbols to appeal to people's knowledge and rely on their judgement of interpretation. Another important aspect of road signs is the length of time that observers have to interpret these signs. I estimate that on average the longest length of time would be around 10 seconds.
the road signs that i have created have kept these principles in mind. Each is an attempt to incorporate popular symbols that may already have significant meaning attached to them. This should play on your general knowledge and with adaptation
In Class exercise 5
Good for goodness sake is such a broad concept that it became such a difficult task for such a large group of people to decide on one concept that we all liked. Actually figuring out how someone would take away a feeling of happiness or contentment was also a hard factor to work around. In the end we decided to keep the campaign simple, well known, and something that was a little bit dorky/stupid (though now it has really taken on a whole new light, being the ultimate coolness!). In the end we decided on using 'high fives' to enforce the notion of good for goodness sake.
In Class Exercise 6
The rebus exercise was somewhat nostalgic. it almost felt as though I was a child again trying to associate words with pictures - though this was carried out in a method completely opposite to that of infantile learning strategies. As a group we went through a couple of methods to try figure out a way of making a sentence with pictures. First attempts were marred with failed attempts to create sentences that we knew had pictorial associations. The only reason this failed was because the sentences we were coming up with were completely generic and were also ones used by Nigel and Desiree in the demonstration examples. We then thought perhaps it would be easier to try create a list if words that were rebuses, then use those words to create a sentence.
The results are the following examples. The first, 'to be or not to be', was thought up in the first round of our rebus trials. The second example is 'be there or be square', another generic one, but it was done with the second round of thought process. the play on 'be there' or represented by 'beaver'.
In Class Exercise 7
probably the most arduous and time consuming task yet. the pixel portraits were so detail intensive. I am yet to develop a link between the importance of these portraits back to the topic, symbols and distribution. I understand that the idea was to create a recognisable image with almost unrecognisable colour blocks, however, i didn't think that it was necessary to do 5 pixelated portraits. each one i have tried however a different method. Probably not the smartest way of doing things because it seems to have taken a lot longer than i would have liked it to. The first portrait, Neil, was done by converting a photo of his to greyscale then allocating pixels by memory onto the 48x48 grid. Hence the reason why his face is so weird and what i considered slightly caricatured. The second is a partial portrait of the tropical santa himself, Peter Mcgill. I wanted to explore the likelihood of the possibility of being able to recognise a face by supplying only some of the information. I did this further with Phil's face. I'm not sure if only because i know its Phil's face that i am able to recognise it. I'm hoping its as recognisable to everyone else as it is with me. The final two are of, symbols, most prized lecturers. The first, Desiree, is slightly more abstract, adapting the 8 bit gaming system to portraits was a little more intriguing than i thought it would be. The final portrait is just intense attention to detail, colouring each square individually, the portrait looks very similar to a photographic representation of Nigel.
In Class Exercise 8
Information connectivity! how do you do this with a symbol and text? Hopefully my poster does enough to get the message out there. i generally wanted to keep the design simple, in your face and informative enough to engage the viewer. I thought the use of bright colours would be a good way to grab attention, and hopefully the use of bold text would ad the necessary information needed.
In Class Exercise 9
