History and Futures
These weeks lecture really highlight the importance of written communication in design. Graphic designers take it into their hands to write and explain life long experiences and passion showing the importance of how design is spoken in writing as well as visuals. There is much great inspiration throughout this lecture and really brought to light that written communication is highly important as the visual work we create. I’ve personally anxious when I write and find it hard when to start as well as finding a middle and an end to a written piece. I’m really enthusiastic to try and find my tone of voice and not worry about what’s right or wrong when writing content for something that I want to bring across to communicate.
The Blast magazine with its great Magenta cover had only two editions published in the early 20th century. The Vorticists movement in Britain was influenced by the figure of Wyndham Lewis who edited the magazine. The manifesto is eye-catching, contemporary and anarchism within its context that you can see applied in modern society. Very empowering piece of writing, which is one of many other manifestoes that was written at a time where the world was about to embark on a war to remember a century later.
Jonathan Safran Foer’s, Tree of Code pushes book design to a new level in an age of digital publishing. The book cover looks very similar to any other book on the outside but when you dive right in, you’re taken away by every page die-cut to create a narrative pattern. Looking at the pages it seems it needs to be decoded to understand the story which would make the tactility interesting and challenging to read.
Craig Oldham work is really admiring and love the way he brings back history in his design for this book ‘In loving memory of work’. The typography I really like and how he re-lives the letterform from protest signs from the past. Overall the passion and belief he shows in this book project really show through as this has been genuinely a remarkable piece of graphic design that can impact people today.
Adrian Shaughnessy shows great passion for driving his publishing business for design books in the creative community. He truly distinguishes the importance of the process of the designer role and working with publishers have boundaries you can’t push. The work they publish shows subjects that are either neglected or ignored by mainstream publishers and what they’re creating is searching material through archives that can inlighten to people in the design world.
Further Research
Irma Boom
My Manifesto for a Book
Irma Boom talks about her book ‘Weaving as Metaphor’ by artist Sheila Hicks discussing the methods of developing this beautiful book. I really enjoyed watching this video see into the thoughts and ideas in the process of her book design. Especially finding it hard to get the publishers on her side to create this unique book.
Thoughts on Design: Paul Rand
Paul Rand is a great aspiration in design and this manifesto is the pioneering vision that all design should seamlessly integrate form and function. I personally want to read more into this book and is the subject on my wanted list.
Building a Brand Voice
I did further research into voicing a brand as it is something of interest to me because I enjoy branding projects. Create meaning and narrative to bring the best personality out of a company that shows it’s true colours to their strength. Reed Words is a great creative copywriting company that’s worked with many heavyweight brands to voice their products or services to the world. I really enjoyed this article as it gave some great tips on how writing should be treated with as many peoples input in the business to share ideas and communication within a brand and it’s people. This can really find the right tone of voice that can really speak volumes to push and connect with its audience. It’s very important that this comes through as many people love to see authenticity and honest voices that can act in caring for something they believe in.
Workshop Challenge
This weeks workshop has been a great joy in looking and understanding writing as a creative and these tasks have helped me look further in the area and how important it is to know this subject around the design in more in-depth understanding.
I started looking into manifestos as it was the theme on this list for this weeks workshop challenge. I found many interesting on the subject and the empowering beliefs that come across these documents. The Dada movement manifesto was something of interest when reading it as you can see how the modern world today resembles the tone and attitude in the manifesto that was written. Both Hugo Ball and Tristan Tzara points come across with strong attitudes to make a change to society during a modern time where bourgeoisie and nationalism showed strongly in social behaviour at a time when there was a war on the arisen. You can really seek out the tone of voice in a strong and empowering voice to articulate to the audience to listen and stand up in what you believe is happening around you.
AGI New Members 2007–2017
This book created for AGI New Members, the format really was an interest of an art form. Personally, the concept didn’t show much meaning to me but the tactile of the book became an art form in itself that created a playful and lively element. The book consists of the design work of 200 newcomers that show and describe the work of each member and themselves. A very exciting form of book design.
The Art of Looking Sideways
Alan Fletcher
I’m a great fan of Alan Fletcher’s work and also his written book The Art of Looking Sideways as this was the first design book I brought when at college. This book is amazing as rather a book of chapters, it’s a load of interesting subjects combine in one book that brings topics of interest at random to read where ever you are in the book.
Charles Bukowski Glitch Book
I really love the format of this book by Charles Bukowski as the narrative shows a creative way of depicting the drunk narrative of poetry that speaks about the story of a pianist through it’s visual as well the written context. This is giving me some idea for my workshop challenge in a direction that can influence my ideal decision for writing and visual.
I’ve considered my options for this week’s challenge and was split into 3 themes which I find interesting. I was contemplating between a launch document for a new brand, a manifesto and a speech, which I find these subjects a great opportunity to show a tone of voice for authenticity, empowering and belief through language that can influence people to read on and engage with the content.
The direction I’ve taken is the speech theme where in the past I was a best man for my friend’s wedding which at the time was very challenging in putting a focused written piece that wasn’t too long for people to lose the interest. I wanted to work with a speech to talk about the past and present of our friendship with the prospect of the future ahead for him and his wife that we all share a great relationship. Overall this has to have the tone of voice that brings true meaning to every word of the groom with the humour of myself and our friendship that brings the best out of our characters for everyone to enjoy.
The Speech
400 word written article
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Paul and for those of who do know me…I can only apologise.
If there’s anybody here this afternoon who’s feeling nervous, apprehensive and queasy at the thought of what lies ahead, it’s probably because you’ve just married Ollie.
Ollie and I go way back to the good old days. When he came through the doors of our design class thinking he’s Barry big bollocks, giving it large. I thought immediately what do we have here? Is this guy being for real?
But little did I know, we would turn out to be best of friends and along the way getting to know a great group of lads sharing stupid and foolish adventures over the years.
There’s an old saying about friendship that reads…’It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them’ and goodness that couldn’t be more true for me and my bro.
I could go into all the funny stories that include some of that stupidity but instead I’d rather focus on all the smart moves he has made. His friendships, the relationship he has with his family, his ambition in life, it’s all a reflection of the person he’s become today. But really, the smartest move he’s made is marrying you Elodie.
Elodie you look absolutely beautiful today and Ollie you’re clearly punching above your weight, but I couldn’t think of a better-suited couple as your love is clear to see. Elodie over the years I have known you to be such a caring, passionate and lovely person let alone forgiving (once again I’m sorry getting Ollie in trouble)
Ollie and Elodie otherwise known as Ollidie, I can tell you are the best of friends, you have supported each other through out the years, you love to discover new things together and you marvel at each other’s creative talents. I can tell genuinely that you are a perfect match.
Now remember this advice. There are two things that will make a marriage last: a sense of humour and selective hearing.
No, seriously marriage is great! It lets you annoy one special person for the rest of your life! And I’m sure you have already had a good taster of this Elodie over the years.
So I would like to make a toast (Hand of French Toast) and please Lettuce Celebrate (Hand Lettuce)
Let us all wish Elodie and Ollie years and years of happiness. May you be friends to each other only as lovers can, and may you love each other only as best friends can.
Here’s to lifetime of happiness, please raise your glasses to Ollidie!
Development work
Design Form
I was thinking about to create the speech written on several beer mats that shows a last-minute task just before the wedding when the best man is bringing together the words to describe his story whilst drinking a pint to calm the nerves. This could give a more authentic feel and mood to the artwork as it brings a connotation of the movement in the speech.
Result
This design piece is far from finished but the idea is to indicate a narrative of my speech through emotional waves up and down of a drunken speech, trying to keep it together. The pint glass is a symbol to show our friendship and silly antics that we’ve shared along the way. I believe this can result in an interesting visual and would need to work a bit more in typesetting to the finer details that can help words identify their meanings more in this visual.