Photoshop Workshop

For the photoshop work shop we were taught how to import loads of photos at once by placing them as  smart objects, - file - scripts - load files into stacks. This means you dont have over 100 windows open if you were to do in manually and also means editing between photos is easier. We used a technique that took the median of all the photos we put into a stack and essentially took all the people out of the photo by comparing each photo with one another. 

When you take the median image from the stack it takes away all the people, but the clouds get blurred together, so by placing a single original image you can select the sky you want by just deleting the bottom half of the photo to delete all the people. Need to rasterize the layer from a smart object to edit it.

I decided to take my photo a step further by maybe including one of the people in the photos.

I thought why stop at that though when you could place the grumpy cats head on his.

Message and delivery. Fidel Castro

I found it difficult at the start deciding on a subject that I could get involved in doing and that I wouldn't just get bored of the research I had for it, The first story I looked at was recently a blind man got tasered  for having his cane mistakenly took for a samurai sword, I researched pretty deeply into this story because there were a lot of related articles surrounding police misuse of non lethal weapons and debates on weather police should carry tasers at all.

In the paper I bought (the I) there was another story I chose to look at, it was about the recent rumour that Fidel Castro had died. The story of this was in fact he wasn't dead and he has posed with a copy of that days paper. Although there wasn't much recent news surrounding Fidel Castro I decided to use this story simply because when I started to look back into his life there were some very interesting discoveries I made.

Fidel Castro attacks 'imperialist media' for reporting rumours about his health
This was the original story that first put me onto researching further into Fidel castro.

This lead me then onto several other articles about Castro
Weird and wonderful, the facts about Fidel Castro
638 ways to kill Castro
and then I eventually watched a documentary on the BBC called 638 ways to kill Castro.

From history in school i knew a bit about Fidel Castro already, I knew there had been lots of attempts on his life, looking into it further though really became very interesting. This is the main focus of my project surrounding Castro.

OUGD401 Context of Practice

The task set was to find 5 images of Modernist graphic design and 5 images of postmodernist graphic design.

Modernism

Paul Rand

This is a classic example of modernist graphic design its simple use of shape and colour is very typical of this style of design, It very simply does the job its set out to do and in this it is a successful piece of design.

This is a poster with a modernistic style to it, the use of only a couple of colours and the bold red relates strongly to some of the first design work done in the modernist period in Russia. 

1964 olympics

I really like this poster from the 1964 olympics, I think the the enlarged image of the japanese flag works really well with the olympic rings. The poster has included everything it needs to include but in such a simple way.

Wolfgang Weingart

This is quite a classic looking example of modernism, use of very little colour with a creative use of the placment of type and image, this particular example reminds me a little of the work of david carson, due to the collage like structure of the image.

Pentagram

This is an advert from pentagram studios this simplicity to it is really nice, again the same use of minimal colour and on the majority the use of red. 


Post Modernism

Jamie Reid

This would definatly be considered as post modernistic art, its doesnt so much follow the clean and simple lines of the modernist movement, instead uses a much more lo-fi approach to the art.

April Greiman
I really like this example of April Greiman's work, its very contrasting from the modernistic style work i have already looked at using multipul bright colours an images.

David Carson
This is an image from one of the many different styles David Carson uses in his work I like the composition of this image and this different oranges and blues he uses in this particular example of work. 

Peter Saville
I love the use of colours and the use of collage in this album cover made by Peter Saville for the Happy Mondays.

Andy Warhol 
Probably one of the most well known artists associated with the post-modernist movement, i really like this image the colours work making the overall image really bold.

OUGD401 picture analysis

The first image i have chosen to analyse is the Uncle Sam range advertising image, as a group we discussed this image in great depth. There are lots of little hidden things in this picture or things that give you clues as to the purpose of this advertisment. The image is actually advertising the Uncle Sam range, a line of cookers, knowing this information the purpose and meaning of the picture becomes a lot clearer, to sell you a product. Throughout the whole image you see propaganda and patriotism everywhere, the typography for example has a distinctly american feel to it, the sort you would associate with the wild west. Everything in the image is covered in the American flag from the floor to the curtains, other symbols have been involved like the golden eagle sitting on Uncle Sam's shoulder. 

The original target audience for this advert would have been the middle to upper class American man, someone who could afford a stove like the one in the picture and slaves and workers to cook for you. The image itself is really showing you the target audience. The historical reference in the picture symbolised by the clock says 1776 - 1876. In 1776 America gained their independence, and so this image is saying look where we are 100 years after independence. The propaganda in this picture is going as far to say they are the providers for the world, and the peace keepers, symbolised by the offering of the bread to the world.

The second image we were told to analyse is a promotional picture from the first world war. At a first glance the image is nowhere near as bold and imposing on the audience. This does not mean to say though that not as much could be said about it. The first thing you really see is a question asked to the farther of the kids in the image, 'Daddy, what did YOU do in the great war?'. This question, although directed at the father in the picture is really directed at the viewer of the poster to put pressure on younger men to join up for the army and fight for their country. Its using a really smart idea of looking into the future where life appears to be great, us having won the war, and the mans kids are asking what role did he play in the war. In those days this will have been a very important thing for you to fight for your country and immense pressure was put on people to do ultimately what was the right thing. The child playing with the army figures also reinforces this idea of joining the army in an almost sub-conscious way.

The typography contrast completely from the first image, just in this way you can almost tell the difference between England and America. The typeface used in this advert though is very typically British and of the era. The gender of the target audience is very clear in this image, but I also think it could be used to change women attitudes towards the war effort. Just looking at the picture the furniture and clothing doesn't give too much away I think this is to appeal to the highest number of people across the different classes.

Overall these are two greatly contrasting images, but they do contain some similarities, for example they are both tools of propaganda and both contain very patriotic values in them, although the British poster is much more subtle than the American one. 

Prospectus Evaluation

We were put into groups for our first seminar on the context of practice and we were told to discuss the new LCA prospectus for next year. We were told to look at the design, layout and function of the book. After working in groups we got together as a class and identified features we thought were successful and unsuccessful. Most of the comments made were on the unsuccessful side due to the fact that the prospectus was designed by students at LCA, and we felt that it didn't really reflect the collage in its design.

1- I personally quite liked the front cover, I thought it was quite bold and they used an embossing technique on the letters to give it a bit more attention to detail. I think though the colours could have been different as im not sure really how well the red and blue work together.

2- The photos chosen in the prospectus were really strange, most of them looked like they had been taken last minute to put into the book and they were trying overly hard to look arty, with strangely angled shots of stacks of paper and things.

3- The layout was another weirdly designed feature in the book, the photos were just dotted about on the page with no real structure or consistency to the placement of them. this is the same case for the type.

4- The typeface used was pretty standard, but it remained consistent for all type used in the prospectus, the headers were all the same and the body of texts on the pages looked really boring and not very inviting to read. 

5- Some one pointed out in the group that the paper quality changed halfway through just randomly  i dont know if there is an explanation for this but I just think it was poorly put together. 

Overall I felt this wasn't the most successful piece of design coming out of LCA, I just reached the conclusion that whoever designed the prospectus must of had too much blog work to do to actually do a proper job. 

Love/Hate

Hate

This is a flyer for a tattoo studio from a place near me in Manchester. This certain example is pretty terrible but its the shop front that really gets me, tattoo is spelled tatt2. For a tattoo studio you would think that the graphic design is everything and this really doesn't make me want to get a tatto there.

Love

I really like this technique of paper cutting I recently discovered an artist who specialised in using paper this way, i forgot to save him though and after a lot of searching on the internet this is all I could find, not even a name. He makes posters by cutting out shapes of coloured card and layering them on top of each other to build up really interesting images.