SB1: Initial Idea Sketch

I started to draft out an initial drawing for the map that I'm intending to make. I haven't actually planned  out how I'm going to create the map, however my main idea was to map out the chorus of the song that we are doing. I thought simplifying the moves to stick line drawings would be the best as it would make it easier for the audience to understand and comprehend what is happening and what the move it of the dance. I also included the body, assuming that the audience does not know what the song and dance it, therefore they will need to understand and see what everything in order to do the moves. 

I don't have much idea yet in how I'm going to go forward with this, however as of now I do know that showing the whole body structure along with the hand and feet movements to the song is important in order to make the audience understand and interact with the map, therefore I will make this centre of my design throughout the refinement and development of this brief. 

SB1: Peer Crit

Today, we had our peer crit for our SB1 Mapping brief and I presented my Dance choreography idea to the rest of the group.

I tried to summarise my idea as much as possible and told them my references and research behind in order for them to give me ideas as I'm currently stuck on what to do with it and how I should initiate the design process.

These are the responses that I got:

• research is good on kine sphere - I should them my research on rudolf laban's kinesphere analysis and they thought it was the most interesting and probably reference it more in my design. 
• Flipbook - I was also kind of stuck to how I could present and produce the map, and someone suggested if I could make it into a flip book. I though this was a good idea because it it can emphasise the movements really well as it will be quite smooth and dynamic. However, after evaluating it again it may compromise the interactive aspect that I wanted the audience to have with it. However, I thought it would be really hard to screen print as I should have to screen print each page.  
• screen print - gradient light (first) end (dark) They suggested maybe I could use use the gradient effect when screen printing in order to indicate the start and end f the movement sin the flip book or another production process that I try. 
• concertina - (runs along) I could make a concertina in order to show the process of the movements on each page and the back pages. 

Thoughts & Reflection:

I think I got some good feedback from my peers and they liked my idea and my research and referencing behind it. I also  thought the flip book idea was good however I feel like I want to push the interactivity aspect to it more rather than the audience reading it so I maybe need to just refer to the idea. I also liked other people's idea like Eloise's idea of mapping the Corn Exchange building, which I thought was really cool and she could maybe emboss of the paper stock material that she's using in order to emulate the 3D aspect that she wanted. 

SB1: Initial Ideas

After today's briefing, I was feeling a bit stuck on what to do for SB1 however I thought of relating it back to what I like doing in Leeds and what I have done so far in the city as a way to engage and bring it back to the brief itself. I actually tried to start a  personal project last year of documenting phrases that I hear from people around Leeds which I thought represented the city, especially the student life and what students feel and do in the city. However, I lost all the content for it :(

For a fresher more specific idea, I thought of doing the same but in a specific area such as the Market and documenting the conversations and language used within the area.

Idea #1 

Market Mapping - Going around Kirkgate Market and identifying the various conversations and niche language used by vendors and customers. I might represent the different tones of the languages through typography or colour which represents the city and the area in the map. The map can be a concertina which gradually showcases the differences in the market area despite it's small proximity. 

Another way to elevate this idea, is by choosing a contrasting part of Leeds which also showcases a different side of the city. In order to highlight the diversity within the community and the different types of people that live within the city. 

Idea #2 - 

Receipt Mapping - Mapping people's left over grocery receipts. People usually leave their receipts on the counter especially on the self service aisle on supermarkets and it could be interesting to see what they have bought and think of the context of why they have bought it e.g. if it's all alcohol maybe they were about to go out or if it was different ingredients maybe they were preparing to cook a specific dish with it. I could also correlate it to the time that they bought it and if it was peak time or really late or early at night? Maybe, it would suggest the consumer traffic or spending and which product is the most popular? 

However, maybe it may seem weird or maybe goes against the ethics bit of design? If this was to be mapped out, it could be on a long piece of paper with all the products written based each receipt, time or product. 

Idea #3

Sticker Mapping - Going around Leeds and mapping stickers found on traffic posts, walls etc. as there are lots of them around the city. It would be interesting if to see which stickers are the most common or only found in certain posts/areas.

Idea #4

Dance Mapping - I'm currently taking part in a dance team to show at a dance showcase that will be shown for 3 days in Leeds University which showcases all their dance society's genre's and styles, so I thought it would be interesting to if I could map out my progress of learning the choreography that I am currently learning for the society that I am involved in. It could show certain points in which I was able to learn a move quickly and in contrast a move that I found difficult, maybe I could show it through repetition of line of shape or bolder and thinner lines. I could also maybe create the map in which the audience can actually interact with it by being able to follow the map itself in order to learn the same moves that I learnt throughout the process. 

Thoughts & Reflections:

I think that so far I have generated quite a range of ideas, which I could pick which one to move forward with. I think that the receipt one would be interesting however it would be very hard to execute as it would mean that I'd have to go to multiple self service tills in one shop with might be impossible as they tend to not let you do that, as people have to use; and it would possible disturb the workflow and customer traffic. In addition, it might not be appropriate as it can be seen as my trying to look at someones private and personal information. Also, people may actually take their receipt therefore the point of the whole idea would become redundant. 

On the other hand, I think that the dance mapping has the best potential as it's something that i have total control of and is something that I am currently doing therefore it will show a clear true progress and something that can be appealing to a certain demographic and has an interactivity aspect which actually takes the purpose of the map which is to be used by the audience/ user. 

Visiting Professional: Tom Joyes

Tom Joyes

Works for ELEPHANT magazine.
Research Practice -
Methods used such as go pros, cameras, screen recordings, magazine

Ai Hasegawa
Design Indaba
salvi
forbiddenkn0wledge
lilmiquela
Balenciaga campaigns

Today's workshop

(Fuzzy Logic Magazine)

Museum of Fiction (Today's Workshop)

After his talk we formed in groups of 5-6 in order to produce a piece of design which correlates to a series of words (Rogue, Lucid, Army). We initially thought of making Ru Paul's Drag race being portrayed as a guerrilla/ army recruitment campaign and manipulating clips form the show in order to attract audiences to join the army. However, upon doing it we found it a bit too hard and complicated as we felt that the clips from the show was more about drama and winning making it hard to portray the recruitment army. We decided that maybe we could work on different interpretations so I decided to take on the aspect of ludic dreams.

I took  the idea of lucid dreams being dreams that can be controlled by the sleeper and feeling like it's a real life experience. The stages of the dream are represented through the various visuals connoting to almost surrealistic and weird things that can come during dreams that can in turn also be something that interrupts sleep itself as they become uncontrollable and too much, making the experience very restless and in the end uncontrollable snapping one out of the dream. 

Here are the other interpretations that other people in my group created. 

Jocel created a propaganda like advert using Ru Paul's drag race and interpreting it as a way to make people enlist in guerrilla army; so when people may think they are joining the show they are actually joining the army. I quite liked her video and was really happy she went ahead with it, instead of changing ideas. I think it turned out quite good and is both funny and quite unsettling when played with the background music. 

                                          

Ellie and Lizzie created posters based on ants and how one ant may become rouge within the colony. The advert is meant to be warning to other ants within the colony to look out for the 'rouge ant'. This kind of personified the ants and make them act the same as us which I thought was cool, and made me think of how animals actually work together and the kind of procedures they do within their environment. How do they communicate? Why do they communicate? What can they communicate with?

Georgia also created this poster, which also relates back to Jocel's design and how drag has been used in a manipulative way in order to get people to enlist in the army. However, it does look a bit more straightforward visually I still like it because I think she created a good style and aesthetic to it that aid to JOcel's advert. I think that both designs would be able to be used together as a pair in order to further emphasise the concept of the drag race = army enlisting idea. 

Thoughts & Reflection: 

I thought Tom's talk in the morning was really really insightful although he didn't talk much about himself, he gave us suggestions of what we can do and who and where we should look at in order to broaden our research process and knowledge. And, I think think through that I knew who he was as a designer, his aesthetic and what the likes to do and want; which I think was really helpful. Also, the fact that he also gave use ideas on how we can broaden our research perspective through different mediums we could play around with showed how broad his research spectrum is as well. Fuzzy logic was also interesting, because it showed political issues in such an ironically interesting and funny satiric way that it actually will make you interested and aware of the topic rather than reading it from a boring news article. It also show real images from his own research making the magazine even the more factual and real. The workshop was also really fun, although we did hesitate a bit it was a really fun workshop and I enjoyed working on it and seeing everyone else's work. All in all, it was a really good workshop and was probably one of the most insightful and informative workshop we've had so far. 

SB1: Research (Leeds Riot Map 1643 - 2002)

Leeds Riot Map 

Leeds Riot Map was created for James Cauty's ADP Riot Tour. It's available both web and mobile through a static map. 

mobile static map

The riot map shows the 21 riots that happened in Leeds from 1643 to 2002. It's more of a timeline of all the riots which may be to accommodate the structure of the tour in order for tour member to understand the history of Leeds and the riots. Also, because it's related to history, it's important to make it very informative and educational hence how wordy and text heavy the format is. It's also not the typical 'map' because it's more of a timeline, however it effectively showcases the idea and its purpose for the audience and its usage.  

Thoughts & Reflection:

I think as it focuses a lot on the information and the educative side of the tour and about the riot, the design aspect of it is missing, therefore I don't think it'll be than enjoyable or memorable. I think that if the information within each timeframe was shorten and was accommodated with visual cues and ind of storyboard format timeline along with the map it would much more engaging to look at and actually learn what it's about. It will also gather the users attention span much quicker and longer as they can follow the map better with more visual direction as opposed to just the stars on each location. All in all, I think it's a pretty basic map and not something users would probably want to have or keep or even be interested in be in the first place. Although the educative and informative aspect of it is well thought out and produced the engaging and visual design aspect is lacking making it ineffective in reaching its audience for its purpose.

SB1: Research (Situationist Drawing Device)

Situationist Drawing Device by Jisoo Han and Paul Ornsby 

The drawing device is a mechanism with records the experience of landscape; through the usage of the mirrors on the device. It "records a journey taken in an altered state of perception through drawing". The device was inspired by the Greek invention (pseudoscope) and takes "the idea of reversing left and right vision...adapted to reverse forward and backward vision". It also has another key features which is a disc on the users back which created seismological sketched of what the user is seeing through the device in real time. 

Han and Orsby was inspired by the idea of creating a device which, rather than being practical and mainly useful, it's something the satisfies one's creative curiosity and a bit nonsensical in a way. Much like during the Victorian era were "Victorians invented a proliferation of devices, often ingenious, rarely of much practical use". 

I do find their device a bit out there and something that you won't really find anywhere making it unique and innovative and I think that it's a great solution and device for the concept of perception and looking at the environment in a different and interesting way. Although, I know audiences will look at it and think that it's very unpractical from the way it's created and maybe even think it's pointless, however that is part of why they created the device in the first place. 

Thoughts & Reflection:

I think that it's a really interesting way or recording something (experience of landscape), as well as catering it to the audience by making it something wearable that the audience can actually experience themselves, as experience can be more valuable than what is sometimes recorded or mapped. Although a downside of it is it's very inconvenient and more of something to display rather practically used a lot. 

SB2: Research Workshop

Today we had a research workshop in order for us to get used to and understand more about appropriate research methods we could use for  our own briefs.

Primary Research - interviews, surveys, books, documentaries, podcasts, radios etc.

Secondary research - existing research thats already been done, and examining and analysing it.

WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, HOW

Unusual Research Methods - experience it, understand it, investigate it, 

Document - document experiments, practical work etc. and analyse/ examine them

*Use appropriate research methods for you own topic*

Today's Session

• Research on maps, mapping n groups of 5 max.
• Have to go OUT the uni building. 
• deliverables are research boards. 
• findings on the wall

OUR GROUP TASK

We were split into groups to conduct a research about a concept, with our group deciding to research and document conversations that we hear from people while waking through the streets. At first me, Jocel, Kristen and Georgia walked together but found that we were getting the same exact conversations, therefore we decided to walk together the same way however at different distances, giving us really interesting results.

This research method gave us really interesting results that when we were transcribing the conversations we found similar, if not the same exact conversations are being repeated throughout, as well as conversations that seem to connect and make sense together occasionally, showing us that walking at different distance and changing our research method slightly made for a more dynamic result. As well, as having different languages slotted in between made it even more interesting as well.

Moving forward with this, research on conversation patterns and how different people react to certain conversations can be done. I could also maybe analyse how and why different conversations can make sense when put together though they don't relate? or research on English Language structure possibly, but I don't know if that going TOO MUCH OUT OF CONTEXT. Nevertheless, I think that it's a a really interesting concept and idea that can be taken into different avenues.

Thoughts & Reflections: 

Today was actually really productive and was very fun as it made me think of other more unusual research methods I could apply to my idea for SB1 (although I don't know what idea I want to do yet :(.i was also good to see what everyone else had done, as we all thought of very different things at the same time they were all very interesting. Especially, the 'hat' group, because their idea sounded very simple but at the same time it was really good because it was really well executed and it worked really well and you could understand their concept right of the bat, that's why I think it worked really well and they won.

At this point, I'm still thinking about what my concept for SB1 is, also I don't want to think about it too much and too long because I really need to have a good amount of research for it as well and screen print too.