Maryam Duale's Ramblings

British by culture, Muslim by religion photoshoot

maryamduale — Wed, 20 May 2009 19:09:09 +0000

This is the photoshoot I did for the last page in my book ‘British by culture, Muslim by religion’. The images have not been photoshopped yet so you’re seeing them in their raw format.

ABC3D

maryamduale — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:11:22 +0000

I’m working on my interactive, pop-up book for the British Muslims brief and a friend of mine showed me this video:

How great is that? Each page is different from the last, Im surprised they came up with 26 different pop-up for the book. Kudos to them.

Little olive

maryamduale — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:08:12 +0000

This is the pot for the little olive baby food brief (I changed the name from little olives little olive because it sounds more personal) and hopefully this is how the individual packaging for the each pot will look.

Typographical posters

maryamduale — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:32:53 +0000

My posters for the awareness campaign are going to be typography based and I’ve just been looking at different blogs and websites to get some inspration:

I like the layout of the first poster because of its simplicity, I want my posters to be simple and typographical as the message is quite simple and uncomplicated. The last two posters caught my eeye because the colours used are so bright – I want to use similar colours to draw peoples attention in.

I like the use of the to colours here, it breaks up the text really nicely.

Samples! :)

maryamduale — Sat, 09 May 2009 12:34:27 +0000

The samples from Whitneywoods, the promotional company arrived today: below are pictures of my favourites that I will hopefully use in my book to make it more interactive

Interactive book

maryamduale — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:36:30 +0000

I ordered this off ebay – its so cool, it fits in well with my ‘accents’ idea. Its a piece of amazing technlogy that means you can record message into your own cards, so I”m going to make it one of the pages for my interactive book.

I’ve also sent off for a sample package from this group, they’re a company that sell pop-up mailer groups, I’m hoping their samples will give me more idea to make my book more interactive.

Edward Wright

maryamduale — Wed, 06 May 2009 12:26:55 +0000

Edward Wright was a graphic designer and a good one by the looks of his work below;

A friend of mine showed me this example of his work, and it gave me an excellent idea for one of my pages; which you’ll just have to wait and see. This piece of work was part of The This Is Tomorrow exhibition which included artists, architects, musicians and graphic designers working together in 12 teams—an example of multi-disciplinary collaboration that at the time was unusual and is today to some extent. Each group took as their starting point the human senses and the theme of habitation. Unfortunately I don’t understand the content in which this work was created but if I was to hazard a guess I would say it has to do with the civil rights movement?.

It doesn’t matter at the moment understanding the context but the work is very inspiring nonetheles even without the background. The large font that dominates a whole page at a time really stands out and speaks volumes.

Altered Art

maryamduale — Sun, 03 May 2009 12:38:56 +0000

As my final project will be a book that will combine all of my research and ideas I’ve done I’ve been researching different styles of making my book in, this was when I found out about altered art. I loved it so much I have the book on my desk, its called ‘Altered Books Workshop’ and its written by Bev Brazelton.

Below are examples of altered art/books

I love the delicacy and beauty of the above examples; altered art is a real chance for people to express themselves artistically and uses the books they read as a tool to do that. It’s homemade art and its art that anyone can do, its accesible, and not art that you have to have a qualification to do. There is something really inspiring about this idea. This inspired me simply because I want mine to have a hand made look, I want it to be interactive and fun, and more importantly I want to have fun while making it like the people above seem to have done.

Adrian Shaughnessey

maryamduale — Fri, 01 May 2009 07:48:24 +0000

Adrian Shaughnessy came to speak today and I have to say of all the past lecturers I enjoyed his the most. I supposed it was because he taught spoke about design with morals and integrity. Shaugnessy said during his talk ‘designing is only half of it’, which is why he wrote ‘How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul’. What’re the attributes we need to be a graphic designer?

Adrian Shaugnessy is a self-taught designer who learnt by looking at design and learning from it – I suppose this is why our tutors encourage us to look at other work to get inspiration and learn from them. After saying that he was self-taught and was successful he did point out that he missed out on the crucial part, which was experimenting which is something we get to do at university.

Shaugnessy worked in the studio for a long time, so much so that his wife said that his clients saw him ore than she did but then he left to write the aforementioned book. He wanted to write about what designers don’t write about, from international design to the history of design.

The attributes we need to be a graphic designer are as follows:

1.   cultural awareness
2.   communication
3.   integrity

Cultural awareness

Jessica Hatford said ‘Graphic design is a visual language uniting harmony and balance, colour and light, scale and tension, form and content. But it is also an idiomatic language. A language that uses puns and symbols and allusions, of cultural references and perceptual interferences that challenge both the intellect and the eye.’

Basically as designers we have to be well rounded people, we have to be more than our craft, we have to be culturally aware. Shaugnessy told us of a German typographer of his that said ‘I would never employ a designer who doesn’t read or cook’.

Communication

‘As well as possessing cultural awareness and being aware of the world beyond graphic design, the modern designer needs to be a skilled communicator.’

As designers we have to explain our work in a coherent manner – and it needs to be convincing. When a good idea is rejected it is often the presentation of the idea, nit the idea itself. Norman Potter said ‘this aspect of design is frequently underestimated; an ability to use words clearly, pointedly and persuasively is at all times relevant to design work.

Shaugnessy points out that everything we do is about presentation, we’re often good at telling clients how to communicate – but we’re not good at communicating our ideas end concepts.

Integrity

‘Integrity in design is a bit like obesity in ballet dancers you don’t often see it’. this is not because designers lack honesty and decency, quite the opposite. Rather it is because possessing integrity in the remorselessness climate of modern business is difficult.

The moral of the story boys and girls is if you don’t believe in something no one will believe in you. And if we believe in nothing our clients will have no reason to believe in us, and a great example is the illustrator Brian Holland who turned down a brief that would see him through 19 months because he didn’t work that way. Of course playboy got back to him and gave him the brief under his terms.

British by culture, Muslim by religion

maryamduale — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:26:59 +0000

As one of my final pieces I’mworking on a series of posters with the strapline ‘British by culture, Muslim by religion’. It will hopefully be a typographical piece which showcases instances where the two cultures meet for example one of the ideas is:

‘Most Muslim women buy their hijabs from H&M”

The hijab represents the Muslim part while the H&M part represents the British culture as H&M is one of the many stores in Britains high street.

I’m off to design the posters now.