How can a message be enhanced through its medium?
In this weeks lecture with Sam Winston we looked at ideas around how form and material contribute to the final message. In todays world, pretty much everything we do is screen based. Sam highlighted the importance of taking time away from the screen, using you hands and tools to create a craft.
I think his project of creating art without looking at it is such an interesting one. He lets his hands lead the way and create without being taken over by his eyes. The use of muscle memory and intuition in this is exciting, you are putting trust into your body to create something for you.
Using your hands and tools, is a messier way of creating. You make mistakes but also learn, actively reflecting as you go along. This makes design a more emotional experience, both in the making and the viewing.
I also liked his idea that the unknown moves people more than the known. Making people feel a bit uncomfortable, or forcing them to finish the design in their minds gives people more of an emotional connection with the design.
Sam Winston raised the idea that juxtaposing things together can create a deeper or different meaning. The idea that design can be sarcastic.
I think the idea of a message being enhanced by the medium used to create it is so important. We take time deciding on font, colour and form, so the medium should also be picked with equal care and thought. I love the Acid Rain poster. Using lithium paper really includes the viewer in the design. It shows them something that is normally unseen, and therefore makes their message so much more impactful and much harder to ignore. The solar energy report is the same, the report literally shows the power of solar energy both in its content and also its its form.
Ideas like this that invite the viewer to interact with the design are so engaging.
Media artist Kasia Molga created an amazing project where she took to the streets of Manchester in a suit that showed air pollution levels around the city. This again showed people something powerful that is normally unseen. Showing people things like this makes its so much harder for them to ignore an issue. (Vidal 2016)
Another example of this is in the Generation Lockdown project. The use of a child to make a point really emphases the point they are trying to make. (D&AD 2020a)
Another way of looking at this is using the environment around you to be part of your design. These examples of street art on the roads around show how people have used everyday objects seen around to make into their art.
A designer who I think uses medium in a revolutionary way is Neri Oxman. She uses nature to create her art, a lot of her work is grown rather than made. I think this is fascinating and shows how materials can be so revolutionary when science and design are combined.
“From climate change to space exploration, the field of Material Ecology presents new opportunities for design and construction that are inspired, informed, and engineered by, for and with Nature.”
(Oxman 2020)
Mr Humfreez shows, as people take steps further into technology and are able to create new materials or repurpose things to have new uses the possibilities seem to be endless. It makes you realise how easy it would be to make plastic unnecessary if people prioritised creating new materials instead of short term financial gain. (D&AD 2020b)
I love all the different approaches designers take to their work and coming up with great ideas in “A smile in the Mind” I think each way of designing is interesting and until you have your own path worked out trying out other ways can be really helpful. I like the idea of making quotes from each of these designers into cards or a little book as inspiration to flick through when you’re finding it hard to get creative. (Mcalhone et al. 2016)
Communicate an emotion in your city
Bristol is such a vibrant place and seems to be very full of emotion. During a pandemic the streets are quiet and the emotion of the city feels different to usual. I spent some time walking around to watch people and see what emotions jumped out at me.
With much quieter streets than usual my attention was drawn to other things. Pretty much every available wall is covered in graffiti or street art. Everywhere you look someone has a message they want to get across to you, some of them are hard hitting and loud and others I can’t quite understand.
Protests are also a regular occurrence in Bristol, people here know what they believe in, they know how they want to world to be and they are not just going to sit around, they get outside and try and make it happen.
Other streets of Bristol have different emotions in them. There are many places that are very deprived. There is a lot of homelessness. People are out on the streets a lot begging for money, people suffer with addiction, there are long queues for food banks and street kitchens. These areas still feel full of emotion but are more dejected and less hopeful.
Then on the other side of the city, it is incredibly wealthy and the emotion seems to be totally different again. Ive not spent time in a city with such an obvious wealth divide before. Crossing the small city is like stepping between two different worlds.
From my time exploring and thinking about the city, the emotion I’ve decided to focus on is Anger.
Anger is one of the basic emotions, but anything but simple to feel. Angry can be used and felt in so many different ways. Bristol is an angry city, but it’s also hopeful and rebellious, welcoming and passionate. It protests for a better and more inclusive future. Its angry at how black people have been treated in its slavery rooted past, and it will campaign for change. It’s angry about climate change and protests for change. Bristol is angry but in a rebellious way.
However, at some times it’s anger is filled with disappointment, fear and hopelessness. People are angry at their place in the world. Angry that they don’t have enough money or oppurtunity. Angry that they are so close to so much wealth but living on the streets, or one pay check away. This kind of anger causes aggression and crime.
Process
To create my workshop challenge this week I started by writing down things related to angry and the things that Bristol was angry about. I wanted to show the positive and hopeful side of anger, as well as the wealth gap in Bristol causing a darker kind of anger.
The words that I ended up focusing on were ‘Fight for Change’. This phrase has a brilliant duality. Bristol is always protesting for change and pushing boundaries, but there are also so many people living here whose daily life is a fight for change. Whether thats literally begging on the street or struggling to make ends meet.
I drew ideas and came to like two of them because of their duality and possibility to include multiple layers of meaning. These were, a protest sign campaigning against climate change, and for Black Lives Matter and a clothes label sewn into a hat.
I created designs for both of these on Illustrator so I could move around parts and work out what I liked. I wanted the design to be bold and eye-catching.
The font I chose is big and bold – its shouty and almost angry, but its also full of curves and slightly unexpected shapes at times. It’s like Bristol. It’s angry but hopeful and a little alternative. The font is harsh yet soft at the same time.
I was inspired by street art and in particular Banksy while creating the design for this.
I drew a young girl innocently holding the planet as a balloon, while a big red, angry sun sits perilously close, as if it’s about to pop the balloon/planet.
Something digital didn’t seem right for this project at all however, angry is such a visceral emotion I think it needs to be something you can touch and experience. This was to show the idea that we are killing the planet, yet its our children who will feel the effects.
I wanted to include shades of black and grey to highlight the Black Lives Matter movement and also rainbow colours to highlight LGBTQ+ inclusivity. In this design however the rainbow colours looked a bit too much alongside the red sun.
Medium
In terms of medium to create my design I started from a very limited place. In the middle of lockdown and living in a shared house that I am quite new in, I don’t have access to much.
My first idea was to use letterpress to create my design. I think the slow, beautiful craft of letterpress would create a great contrast and add another level to the idea of anger in my work. However, with lockdown in the UK stopping me from being able to travel to a letterpress studio I had to be more resourceful and decided to embrace my boundaries of only using things I already had in the house.
I decided that with a ‘simple’ emotion, I should go for a ‘simple’ medium. But as with the emotion, there is much more to a simple medium than you first think.
For my protest sign I used cardboard. While creating the sign I found that the lumps of the material affect the design. As you draw onto it the ridges that make up the cardboard push your pen in ways you don’t want. This however adds interest and emotion into the design. Its no longer a perfect digital representation. Because its hand drawn its never going to be as perfect, but you put your emotion into it more. Does this show in the outcome do you think?
The texture of the cardboard affects your design, and the colour of it does as well. It creates a natural and earthy background to the work.
Cardboard is also a cheap, reusable and recyclable material. It has connotations of homelessness, of being eco friendly, of being widely accessible.
I drew the design onto the cardboard and painted it in, just as I would if I was preparing to leave on a protest march the next morning.
While making it, you get into a mediative state of creation. Having to draw round the letters so many times you start to see them as shapes and curves instead of letters and words. You start to feel like you instinctively know where they are going next and feel more connected to them. It feels like part of you and your intention is being pushed into the work.
If you draw like this with anger in you, I don’t think you can stop the anger being transferred to what you are creating.
In this process, you also make mistakes and the letters change shape slightly, but all of this adds to the emotion of the finished product. It wouldn’t be anywhere near as emotive if you simply printed it out. When someone sees the sign, the time you’ve taken to make it is immediately obvious (even though mainly on a subconscious level) and this shows your commitment to the cause. It shows you are emotionally invested in what you are fighting for. Its shows you are angry.
While making this sign the idea of sewing a label into a hat felt smaller in comparison. The process of creating gave me a greater investment in what I was doing. The fact it took me hours to draw and paint felt like an important investment into a cause, and after that to simple sew in a label seemed too easy?
I felt like the poster needed to be placed into Bristol itself to find its true meaning. So I would photographed it out on the street, piled in a corner. A pile of cardboard and personal items is the mark of homelessness in the city.
After some feedback on the ideas wall that my finished design didn’t really convey much anger, I decided to rework it a bit.
I think the emotion I have been trying to capture is nearer to Frustration than anger.
Frustration: the feeling of being upset or annoyed as a result of being unable to change or achieve something.
Dictionary.com
I changed my protest sign to be more emotive, making the words bigger and bolder, the colours darker and the whole sign more frustrated.
I will then take it back out in Bristol and photograph it in the environment to create my finished piece.
Reflection
This week has really got me thinking about the importance of material and medium. I think that in today digital age, the medium of design is often overlooked. It is now so easy to create digital design, fake products and processes using technology that designers can work without ever leaving the screen. I think paying attention to the materials you choose, and stepping away from the screen can make a big difference to the impact of a design.
Becoming physically involved with part of your design makes it more emotional and therefore more emotional for the the viewer. It also allows you to reflect on what you are creating, let your body make decisions and find new paths. With technology moving forwards at the pace it is, I think now is an incredibly exciting time to be in design. The use of new materials that are much more sustainable than common ones such as plastic is exciting and designers will take a big role in making them mainstream.
For my project this week I think getting involved in my design, thinking about the material and physically drawing it made me feel much more connected to it and embed it with my emotion. I also believe the message has been amplified and given even more meaning which wouldn’t have happened if I had created this digitally.
Reference list
D&AD. 2020a. “D&AD Annual 2020 Generation Lockdown.” http://www.dandad.org [online]. Available at: https://www.dandad.org/annual/2020/home/professional?next=/entry/professional/232737/ [accessed 20 Nov 2020].
D&AD. 2020b. “D&AD Annual 2020 Mr Humfreez.” http://www.dandad.org [online]. Available at: https://www.dandad.org/annual/2020/home/professional?next=/entry/professional/231839/ [accessed 20 Nov 2020].
MCALHONE, Beryl, David STUART, Greg QUINTON and Nick ASBURY. 2016. A Smile in the Mind : Witty Thinking in Graphic Design. London ; New York Ny: Phaidon Press Ltd.
OXMAN, Neri. 2020. “Neri Oxman: Material Ecology.” Neri Oxman: Material Ecology [online]. Available at: https://oxman.com [accessed 20 Nov 2020].
VIDAL, John. 2016. “The ‘human Sensor’ Making Manchester’s Air Pollution Visible.” The Guardian, 28 Jul [online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/28/kasia-molga-the-human-sensor-making-manchesters-air-pollution-visible [accessed 20 Nov 2020].
NERI OXMAN. 2015. “Design at the Intersection of Technology and Biology.” Ted.com [online]. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/neri_oxman_design_at_the_intersection_of_technology_and_biology?language=en.
Lizzie Wa Design 
Leave a comment