SB2: Changes in Ideas and Brief

After our talk with Dom and Orlando, as a team we thought that maybe our idea was too weak in order to be put forward, as well as the fact that we seemed to have focused more on creating the actual brief that will accommodate best to the people we want submissions from, rather than focus it on the jobs and roles that we ourselves should be doing for this brief. It seemed that from our form submission, the brief that we created wasn't sufficient and strong enough for two people to do, therefore Dom suggested to try and elevate the brief more, as it seemed that so far it's just us collating and organising work submitted by people, as opposed to actually collaborating and discussing ideas with another designer.

In my point of view, I realised that it looked like our theme didn't also have a strong enough purpose for it be done or for people to participate in. However, thinking back to previous designs students around the university have done, things such as horoscopes have started to become 'trendy' again; also the fact that Orlando also have a horoscope app kind of meant that people are interested and it's not just students as well. Also, in this era and especially the younger generation, we feel the need to make everything satiric and relevant to us therefore we use phenomenons/events/things/actions etc. such as Zodiac signs in ways in which us a generation can collectively understand together and in turn have mutual and social understanding of the context that we have given it e.g memes.

I've also mentioned this to Jocel and how in my point of view and the kind of sphere that I'm on within the Internet/social media, zodiac signs to me have become quite ironic, whilst still having the clever use of actually relating it to the meaning of actual zodiac signs, giving it this two sided "this is funny lmao" to "but tbh, yes that true lol" opinion from people especially the youth. On the other hand, Jocel have pointed out, that some people also, take it very seriously. She showed me people she follows on instagram who religiously do daily readings and do readings to other peoples too (calling themselves 'astrologers'), as well as having a large following of people who also believe in zodiacs, which made me realise that it is also a lifestyle that people follow and something that is a huge part of there lives. Having these different sides and opinions, I think this largely relate to the fact that the demographic of which we have know zodiacs from vary, with me knowing it through social media, largely by youths and teens and Jocel knowing it from proper millennials and a more mature demographic. 

Bearing this is mind, we thought of trying to reach a middle ground between these opinions, relating it back to our publication theme and purpose. We thought it's something that people of all ages should be able to read and relate to their lives, as well as have a unique sense of humour to it that will create it's own following of people, making it a successful run of a publication as we aim to release it monthly. Therefore, because of these assessments and discussions that we had, we ultimately decided to change our brief. 

Brief Change

As the idea of receiving submissions from people through designing based on the zodiac signs, we decided to ultimately create a publication ourselves in collaboration with another practitioner (as opposed to getting submissions all together) that will possibly run monthly focusing on one zodiac sign at a time, referencing there launch dates to their alignment in the sky. Having monthly releases means that we can focus more on theme at a time, giving us freedom to think of more ideas and concepts that we can relate within that sign, such as its compatible sign, recommendations on lifestyle changes etc. We also thought of bringing the aspect of 'creative affirmations' which we bring out in accordance to the signs personality trait e.g. Leo - strong leader "This month you leading abilities will shine through!", which also references back to the social media references and context giving people create for zodiac signs. 

email to BA Illustration, Comic & Concept Art & Animation Students (Level 4,5,6)

In addition, as we would like to closely work with another practitioner/s, it can also be an opportunity for us to explore ways of working and thinking which is different to ours in Graphic Design. for example, working with an Illustrator may help us think more of how different styles of drawing and materials used can evoke a more effective tone of the sign or if we work with a Concept and Comic Art student it may help us realise the importance of structure/story-telling more than we do. Through discussing and communicating with them, we are able to learn from each other through cross-course collaboration at the same time contribute fairly for the publication giving and receiving suggestions and ideas to further develop the publication itself as it progresses.

Thoughts and Reflection:

Overall, today has been quite rigorous and stressful as after talking to Dom and Orlando, I felt as if our idea wasn't good enough therefore in the back of my mind I thought, should we change it? If so, to what? can we still work together? Also, the fact that we've been hearing mixed messages from people have been quite confusing, as some has said that we were allowed to work together and with another artist; but some implying not and that it should be separate. Also, leading us to think of how we should interpret "collaboration". It took us quit a while to hon, revise and develop our brief and idea together for us to feel confident enough on it, however after multiple multiple multiple discussions and thoughts coming back and forth we have ultimately decided on what we were doing. I think both me and Jocel have understood what Dom and Orlando was trying to tell us a bit now in order to keep us on track. Furthermore, as we have revised our idea, we also decided to send the brief to students in courses which we think would work compatible with us and the ideas that we have in our heads: BA Illustration, Comic and Concept Art and Animation. We decided to send the email as we thought we needed a reply from them as soon as possible, in order to have enough time to create the actual publication, leaving time for any delays or problems as well as being able to juggle SB1 and other modules overlapping. Also, taking into consideration other courses, we thought doing it earlier would give them time to asses what they want to do in order to juggle their personal schedules alongside ours and any clashes and problems we can solve quickly to minimise having to do anything last minute. We decided to wait until Monday the 21st at the latest for reply, hopefully we do actually get replies if not we will need to think of other alternatives.