Latin/ Korean typo

shin dokho > http://shindokho.kr/#1512422/typography-seminar

donghyeok > http://okhyeok.egloos.com/

MA degree shows

Don't know if you receive these, but here are two that might be of interest.

Camberwell Space invites you to:

CLASHANDCONVERGE II

24 November - 16 December 2011

Opening Event on 23 November 5 - 7.30 pm
with ALTO prize giving and announcement of winners at 6pm
All Welcome

CCW Artist Moving Image presents new works made by students at Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon Colleges of Art and Design (CCW), University of the Arts London. Winning ALTO submissions will also be on display.

CLASHANDCONVERGEII will create a space where students from all three colleges, courses, levels and disciplines can share their practice and process. With the aim to generate a moving image community across CCW we invited anyone to submit any moving image work, from tests, first tries and experiments through to finished pieces, to be shown in the gallery context in a number of ways. The only rule was that it had to be three minutes or less.

The CCW Artist Moving Image (AMI) Film Fund was launched in 2010 to help fund and develop new and emerging moving image work being made at these colleges with an emphasis on cross-college, cross-year and cross-discipline collaboration.

www.ccwartistmovingimage.wordpress.com <http://www.ccwartistmovingimage.wordpress.com/>

www.alto.arts.ac.uk

Unhate campaign Benetton

http://unhate.benetton.com/campaign/northkorea_southkorea/

Thanks

Thank you all for your feedback on Thursday.
really important for me :)

For Ferdinand

for Carol

We saw this on Typo London and I thought it would be interesting for you:
http://www.artcom.de/en/projects/project/detail/medial-stage-and-costume-design/

Research methods in fashion - for Miya but might be of general interest?

For james

It was Hunter S. Thompson that Ralph Steadman worked with. Interesting film about the two of them (but mainly Thompson) here

http://antigob.tumblr.com/post/11583454484/who-wants-to-watch-the-1979-omnibus-tv-programme

Also, BFI have extensive film archive of British news and documentary films and have updated their catelogue. Not sure about viewing fees but some can be viewed via iplayer.

http://beta.bfi.org.uk/reelhistory/

http://koreantypo.blogspot.com/

It's just the beginning. !!!
You can see informations related to my project and what I'm going to do.
I hope it can be helpful for you to know in more detail.
I will post more references and informations.
-sooyoung-
http://koreantypo.blogspot.com/

How British do you feel? for James

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/oct/17/britishness-map-visualisation-data

ABOUT MIYA

http://cargocollective.com/lizhenghong#

For Ming -Duane Michals

My favorite American photographer.

Michals' work makes innovative use of photo-sequences, often incorporating text to examine emotion and philosophy-McKenna, Kristine-


-sooyoung-

Colonial Film database for James

http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/

For Sean - after tutorial thursday

Book: Symbol by Angus Hyland http://www.laurenceking.com/product/Symbol.htm

Examples of Generative logos (yes, it's the correct word!)
Casa da Música by Sagmeister: http://www.sagmeister.com/work/featured#/node/192
MIT Media Lab Indentity by The Green Eyl: http://www.thegreeneyl.com/mit-media-lab-identity-1

EDP by Sagmeister: http://www.sagmeister.com/work/featured#/node/460
I think this can't be considered generative, but follows the idea of having one brand with different "faces". Other examples of this concept: 
Southbank Centre and Tate by Wolff Ollins/ Marina Willer:
http://www.wolffolins.com/work/southbank-centre#
http://www.wolffolins.com/work/tate

Semiotics:
last year I saw this book - seemed an interesting straightforward approach to it
http://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Means-That-Users-Semiotics/dp/1856695212/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1318631448&sr=8-2

For Rita

http://www.economist.com/node/21531417

again for paula

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/oct/13/uk-five-billion-calories-obesity

About travels:
People tend to become actors when they are travelling. They are actors of their own life (Ken Hollings underlined the characteristic sensations you’re confronted to when entering in an airport. You mentally project yourself in a film where you are the hero). Although there is millions ways of interacting and dealing with space, time and movement, there might be an overall feeling that can reach a majority. When travelling, everything is upside down. You must leave the clan you’re part of to join another clan. It implies that you should adapt yourself to new social codes. Reproduce the same local schemes that you observe around you. That’s a survival reaction. Death or adaptability. Then there is the idea of geographical change. Both body and mind should deal with modified climates, landscape, seasons. People enjoy it and call it exoticism. Finally there is the idea of sensationalism: Travel might be more and more accessible nowadays (development of charters, globalisation…) but it remains a not-so-common occupation, and is associates to a strong collective imaginarium. Travel, in a way, is fulfilment. Nomads move because their land isn’t hospitable anymore. They walk until they find what they need to live. I call that survival. We can apply that model to our modern settled society. We might not be nomads anymore, but I would classify that travel gateway as an animal passion. It’s an unconscious feeling, and it’s not moderate by the reason. If you do not feel good, well, then you do have to leave.

About travel diaries:
Since human have been able to translate feelings into words, and words into writing, they created a tool that they used to report, either a common knowledge, or their inner sensible perception.
Travel diary is a written, visual and sensitive document, translation of a journey. It is a report. People spread on paper what they want to keep, or share, as a way of accessing eternity (describing and projecting yourself and the world in an object that will survive you). One’s would say that a travel diary has legitimacy, and have been by the past a great help to hordes of anthropologists, geographs and scientists.
It might be the case, but nowadays the whole planet has been put into Google Earth and it is not relevant anymore to say that your travel in Kenya was out of the beaten track. Most of the time diaries are fail intent to touch other sensibilities. They are too personal and do not communicate. We must recreate an adapted way of sharing travel experiences within the characteristics of our society.
I love to travel, and I love to read about travels. Although I never enjoyed travel diaries. They are not carrying anything that you expect from them. In opposition to travel guides, travel diaries are treated by one person, which means from a single point of view. How can you reach a wide audience? They should convey everything, but they are obsolete and treat exoticism as an ornament to the boredom of our lives.

About not conveying anything, here is terrible quality photographies of my trip. See you tmrw!

http://amayadelmas.free.fr/indexhibit/index.php?/-/siberia/

http://amayadelmas.free.fr/indexhibit/index.php?/-/mongolia/

For Paula

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/oct/10/diabetes-the-epidemic

Book v screen

Very interesting debate on Radio 4, broadcast today. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015cslc. The discussion starts about 11 minutes in. Some of the content is similar to what was discussed in the group yesterday, although thankfully none of us spoke like one of the contributors.

Victoria

For Ferdinand

I am going to a music/visual festival in Poland next week and this is one of the talks


Presentation: “Face to Facebook – Hacking Monopolism Trilogy,” with Paolo Cirio and Alessandro Ludovico
Face to Facebook was a social experiment: stealing 1 million Facebook profiles, filtering them with face-recognition software and posting on a custom-made dating website (lovely-faces.com). The aim: to give virtual identities a shared place to expose themselves freely, breaking Facebook's constraints and boring social rules. The reaction: huge media coverage, as well as lawsuits and death threats.
Tickets: Free

don't know if you are a member of the blog yet I'll email also

Visualising the Desing Process

Every story has a beginning (briefing), middle (design process) and an end (end product). I am interested in what happens in between. The thinking process. Currently theories of the process are visualised with dry infographics, not taking into consideration that the process changes according to project and designer.


When giving the same briefing to a group of designers, how does the design process change what comes out at the end?

Updated

17th November, whole group tutorial

9th January, Beginning of Spring Term
16th April, Beginning of Summer Term

7th - 11th February, MACD - Work in Progress Show
14th - 18th May, Symposium - present research
6th - 12th June, Assessment for the whole year (research report + visual pieces)
13th June, Exam Board (validifying marks)
13th June, Start of Exhibition (private view)
16th June, Exhibition (family view)
16th July, Degree Ceremony

@CSM - Researchers presenting their work in progress
next: 19th October, Fashion and Media

TATE Gallery, 2 day symposium
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/eventseducation/symposia/24490.htm
28th & 29th October
(£20 concessions), booking required

Holiday break report

Dear all,

How is it going?

I just post to present you my work in progress, what I did so far, and where I am heading right now.
A quick reminder of the state of my subject when I last meet you: Mapping the unseen (following the project of Stephen Boyd Davis), an emotional cartography.
Biomapping is a neologism. It’s a humanized way of drawing maps. Although maps are already hundred per cent human: they are a representation (made of symbols) and they are a technical process (handrawing, printing…), the biomapping aims to reveal the human hidden behind the map. This human is a sensitive living being, and is going in opposition to the “dead” unsurprising rigorist geographical maps that we are used to, which will represent spaces, more than life within spaces.
They are rational, trustworthy and precise, and serve the community (by their capability of being impersonal, collective and common). In opposition, biomapping [from the Greek βιο / life] would be the translation of the irrational, the subjective and the personal. Though it might follows the same process of representation.
How did I come up wit this idea of live maps? Human beings are seeking for exoticism. In our quest of happiness, we tend to look toward what we can’t see, because it might hide a world of possibility. Reading a map is heading somewhere, mentally escaping to another reality. Where do you want to go, says the map?
In the other hand, the science of cartography is a systematic representation of either satellite views, either architectural drawings, and remains a very down to earth and expectable way of saying how a place looks like.
The exoticism tends to disappear, and that’s the point I will actually focus on along the year.
There are three medias I will work on, relatively associated to this travel outcome.
-Travel guides
-Travel diaries
-Maps
These are three distinct commercial products, but there shouldn’t be any reasons for them to be divided, as a support, as they tend to reach the same aim: travel is about experiencing, sharing, learning and challenging yourself. It’s a living experience and we could say that it overlays three realities: the past (travel guide), the present (maps) and the future (travel diary).

Tomorrow I’ll present you some ideas I had to develop the project.

On the photo you can see Aleksei, he is a vory v zakonye (legitimate thief) and I met him in the Transsiberian, one night. As you can see, he tattooed on his chest two stars, meaning that he belongs and is a high member of this cast of thieves.
Believe me, this guy was a bad guy!




Amaya
-

Jeremy Rifkin on "the empathic civilization" | Video on TED.com

Hi guys hope your are well; while doing some research for the strategic department I found this ted x video (so cool we're going to have that at CSM) it's very inspiring and joyful

Enjoy

chloé

Jeremy Rifkin on "the empathic civilization" | Video on TED.com

News from SAATCHI

Hi guys,

I'm writing you to give you some news and insights about my internship with Saatchi&Saatchi. Originally I wanted to work as a strategic planner, but fate has decided for me otherwise I'm currently assisting Art Directors in they day to day tasks: photomontages, storyboardings, workshops etc.. it's a very exciting experience this is why I wanted to share this with you. 

This morning, like every friday they present to us the best advertizing campains.

check these ones and enjoy 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaYUdfNM3Uk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_CDLBTJD4M

Chloé

for rita

http://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_goetz_it_s_time_to_redesign_medical_data.html

for pablo

http://www.ted.com/talks/yves_behar_on_designing_objects_that_tell_stories.html

North Korea has been infiltrated.

Dear Grace

I found an amazing guy living in London. He is leading some group of tourists in North Korea since 2 years. And he is just 25! You can contact him via his Facebook group. He seems to have lot of experience in the field and would be of great interest for your project.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=124032477615177&ref=mf

His name is Alex Hoban. He is currently living in East London.

He is also a writer for Viceland, you can have a look at all his articles here:

http://www.viceland.com/wp/category/alex-hoban/

I think it's a great guy. You definitly should contact him.

Kiss

X

Pablo - Objects/memories web site

Hi group

This is a web site I started to develop last week.

I have to improve this much more, but for the moment you can upload your name, object, memories with this object and a picture (if you want).

You can also search for other people, objects and experiences (but for the moment it’s completely empty).

If you want to donate a nice memory with a cherished object, feel free to do it. :D

http://www.feelthings.com/

video for 3min presentation

Hi,

it would be nice to have some comments and suggestions.

Too long? too boring?

I decided not to include sound because it didn't have good quality, it seemed strange.

I think I like not having any sound at all... makes it more 'deep' in a way.

Should a find a song? (it's so difficult to find one that fits...)

Do you think I should include some kind of background/image instead of leave it white?

Thank you so much :)

For Amaya

http://popupcity.net/library/

Hey there is a free e-book on this called emotional cartography I thought you might like it some of the links are cool on this website also
xx

Portuguese tiles patterns

Soo Young, here you can see the project that me and my classmates did in 2nd year of Uni about Portuguese tiles and its patterns. It was mainly a visual research, so we don't have any theoretical references for that. But I am quite sure that this patterns don't have any meaning. The only thing I can tell you more about tiles is that they are part of our culture and our visual identity. It's present in the facades of lots of old buildings around the country.

Some of them have influences from muslim patterns (easy to identify).

John

This is the link I told you about design+education. Didn't read it yet so don't really know what it's about, but might be of interest. It's a "toolkit" that you can download for free, just under the tag.

4 Martha

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=208726445828457

A COLLECTION OF ACCIDENTS

A collection of accidents is an attempt by Dries Wiewauters to reveal some of the small coincidences that occur during the design process, but end up leaving a strong influence on the finished product. What triggers these moments? What is their origin? The presentation will highlight some past and forthcoming projects; relate them to each other and to prior influences. It will try to expose all the elements of a project that remain hidden within the finished design.

Invited to design the second set of the embedded typeface for SALT's identity, Dries Wiewauters is a graphic designer who also happens to be an avid type designer. He has two Master degrees, one in Graphic Design (2008, Sint-Lucas, Ghent, Belgium) and one in Typography (2010, Werkplaats Typografie, Arnhem, the Netherlands.) Wiewauters is currently based in Belgium and works as a freelance designer specializing in printed matter and custom typefaces.

http://www.drieswiewauters.eu/

Food Design

Anna, this design studio (well, a collaboration of several designers) in Reykjavik makes some projects in food design. Couldn't find any in the website, but just read it quickly **

Windowfarms

might be especially interesting for Paula:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkCuPrsPn_I&feature=player_embedded

the only divided country

I've edited this post, Grace, as there were no images showing and it was very, very long. Here it is without images and with formatting amended (no change to text).

I look forward to your presentation and to the feedback on the project which I think will be very useful for you.

The only divided country

1.History of Korea

Before the division

Korean history begins with the founding of Go Jo-seon in 2333 BC by Dangun. In 18^th Century Korea was occupied by Japan during 35years.(1910–1945). At the end of World War II, the Japanese surrendered to Soviet and U.S. forces who occupied the northern and southern halves of Korea, respectively.

After the division

Espite the initial plan of a unified Korea in the 1943 Cairo Declaration, escalating Cold War antagonism between the Soviet Union and the United States eventually led to the establishment of separate governments, each with its own ideology, leading to Korea's division into two political entities in 1948: North Korea and South Korea. In the North, a former anti-Japanese guerrilla and communist activist, Kim Il-sung gained power through Soviet support, and in the South, an exiled and right-wing Korean political leader, Syngman Rhee, was installed as president.

On 25 June 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea, sparking the Korean War, the Cold War's first major conflict.

On 25 June 1950, North Korea invaded the South, using Soviet tanks and weaponry. During the Korean War (1950–1953) millions of civilians died and the three years of fighting throughout the nation effectively destroyed most cities.

South Korea Democratic state Capitalist country	North Korea
	Socialist state Collectivism Juche Idea (made by Kim il-sung) Dictator ship

2.The reality of division

38th Parallel

The 38th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 38 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. After the Armistice ended the Korean War in 1953, a demarcation line was established through the middle of the Demilitarized Zone. This line crosses the 38th parallel at an acute angle, from southwest to northeast, now serves as the Military Demarcation Line between the two Koreas.

Poverty of North Korea

Now, South Korea and North Korea are in a totally different situation. North Korea has so many problems. North Korea is in necessity. Today, North Korea is beset by widespread poverty and famines. Millions of people died and a lot of people are dying of hunger in North Korea. But Kim Jung-il who is dictator of North Korea and his family live in luxury.

Humanitarian conditions in North Korea

North Korea has most infamous labor camps. The North Korean Political Prison Camp is huge place of exile where the political prisoners considered as threat to its regime are isolated from society. The North Korean regime established 10 camps, holding approximately 150,000 prisoners as of today. Most do not survive and return from their time, and prisoners are daily subjected to 12 hours of forced labour and various forms of violence and torture to death.

3.Research of art works about North Korea

Several artists are telling about North Korean’s situation in all over the globe. Some of art works deal with North Korean’s terrible situation. It shows famine and poverty. Some artists made a documentary about the North Korean’s prison camps and people who was in that prison camp. As well as, A North Korean defector made a musical in South Korea, depicting what he says is a realistic display of the cruelty found in a Northern prison camp.

Kimjongilia (2009) 75min Documentary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTragUC8AnY

North Korean defectors tell their stories of repression, escape and hope.Director: N.C. Heikin

Writer: N.C. Heikin

Stars: Kang Chol Hwan, Lee Shin and Choi Young Hun

Musical ‘Story of Yoduck’ (2007)

Director: Jung san, Jung

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxSTNECCVr8&feature=related

A North Korean defector made a musical in South Korea, depicting what he says is a realistic display of the cruelty found in a Northern prison camp. The several dozen performers created the musical entitled “Yoduk Story” - named after the prisoncamp where human rights organizations say entire North Korean families are sent for even minor political crimes. This musical performed in South Korea, New York and Washington D.C. It was successful also total amount of profits donated for North Koran defectors.

Documentary ‘Pizza for the people’

Director: Kim Whang

Overview

In the course of a long running ideological conflict North Korea is one of the most culturally isolated countries in the world, which reject any foreign influences through a tight control of media and communication equipment. To protect the NK identity from potential damaging western influences, short wave radios for example are banned while TV receiver are locked to tune only to the 3 official channels.

Paradoxically, with the support of pizza loving leader Kim Jong-il the first-ever Pizzeria was recently opened to provide an authentic Italian experience for a minority of wealthy political elite.

With the aim off challenging current cultural obstacles in North Korea, I have contacted a number of Chinese smugglers in China to distribute illegal propaganda over the border to North Korea, through the popular DVD format, which players are widely found in NK homes.

The Pizza to NK is the first in a series of designed insertions that explores how design can playfully contribute and impact on a social and cultural level, subtly challenging an ideological status quo.

http://www.hwangkim.com/pizza.html

BBC News : The first-ever pizzaria opens in North Korea

He made a film and it introduce how to make a pizza for North Korean. Because Pizza is grand public food but North Korean cannot have a pizza. Also, this film contains some of different stories such as ‘How to packing for travel’, ‘How to enjoy Christmas’ and ‘How to enjoy South Korean style dancing’. In North Korea, normal people cannot travel to abroad so they never have been tried to packing for take flight. So they didn’t know that it has some rule like no knife, no fire something like this. And in North Korea, people cannot enjoy jazz music, dace music even classical music which composed by people who lived in capitalist country. North Korean could dance with only their music which has purpose for praising Kim jong il. As well as, this film introduces how to enjoy Christmas and Santa Claus. So this film introduces different culture what we have to North Korean.

After, he sent this DVD to North Korea through different way because in North Korea, watching South Korean TV or Drama is really dangerous. When North Korean watch South Korean’s DVD, if they get caught they should go to the prison camp.

Finally, he could get some feed back from North Korean. They sent a letter to him and they said they tried to make a pizza and it was really delicious.

He film it whole process and it is the documentary titled ‘ Pizza for the people’.

In my opinion, he didn’t say any negative words but he contained everything in his project. It has strong power and I could feel that.

Graphic Design

Title: typographic viruses

Designer: Jonathan Barnbrook

http://www.barnbrook.net/

Documentary: Pyongyang Style

Director: Steve Gong

Steve Gong is a multimedia journalist and portrait photographer based in New York, London, and Beijing.

http://www.stevegongphoto.com/

Born. China Raised. Italy 
University of Virginia. B.A. Biology, B.A. Psychology 
University of the Arts London. M.A. Photojournalis

http://vimeo.com/19901182

Steve Gong traveled North Korea. Actually almost foreign people can travel to North Korea. But every time North Korean guide will be with people and watch what people do. Also, In North Korea tourist cannot have their mobile, lab top, every kind of electronic stuffs even foreigner. But Steve Gong success to record in North Korea and he made a documentary. This video shows North Korean’s real life in Pyongyang. Pyongyang is a capital city of North Korea.

Book

The last Paradise: North Korea

Nicolas Righetti

Photographs and text by Nicolas Righetti. Introduction by Orville Schell. Umbrage Editions, New York, 2003. 128 pp., numerous color illustrations, 9¼x7¼".

Publisher's Description
"The Last Paradise offers a rare and tantalizing glimpse into the surreal landscape and psyche of the world's only communist dynasty, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Secretive, paranoid, and unrepentantly militant, North Korea has incubated its own peculiar mix of communist utopianism and personality cult. Nicolas Righetti is one of the few Western artists invited to photograph North Korean society. Righetti's images feature a bright urban landscape dotted with paper flower, curvaceous neo-constructivist architecture, and synchronized folk dancing. The telltale signs of the poverty and repression of the North Korean regime remain embedded in the absurd juxtaposition of details: huge guns hidden in the traditional landscape wall paintings; looming, inescapable portraits of the late Great Leader and his son; empty shelves at the Paradise Food Shop; Big Brother exhortations proclaiming nirvana achievable through 'iron discipline.'"

POSTED BY RARE AUTUMN AT 13:27

Art under control in North Korea

Jane Portal, British Museu

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zWH05CbG02kC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Art+under+control+in&hl=ko&ei=Tc7nTfb9EISKhQeAms2iCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&res

This timely volume places North Korean art in its historical, political, and social contexts, with a discussion on the state system of cultivating and promoting artists and an examination of the range of art produced, from paintings.

Sang-Soo Ahn

Sang-soo Ahn's works

http://www.galerie-anatome.com/Sang-Soo.html?id_document=1030&langen

http://www.egodesign.ca/en/article.php?article_id=126&page=1

Fail again, fail better

Hey Martha, here is a text on failure, risks and creativity, might interest you *

see music

Finally I found this website that I remembered when you said you would like to make patterns for traditional music of Korea.

Amaya's project /

James 500 words

HRH The Prince of Wales: A Vision of Britain: A Personal View of Architecture

This particular book by Charles Philip Arthur George (a prince) is basically in his opinion ‘[a book] to try and create discussion about the design of the built environment; to rekindle an alert awareness of our surroundings; inspire a desire to observe; but, most of all, to challenge the fashionable theories of a professional establishment which has made the layman feel he has no legitimate opinions.’ I find it interesting as to what would be the relevancy of such a book, if it is the personal view of one person who also acknowledges has no expertise in the area.

Not many books have a front cover which when illustrated is irrelevant to the subject area. Charles Philip Arthur George takes up half the cover pulling a most peculiar facial expression and dithering his right hand to take up more of the cover blocking that out of focus architecture in the background. It’s understandable though as like Charles Philip Arthur George says he is a layman and lacks expertise on the matter.

On the inside flap we are told of how in 1984 Charles used ‘hard-hitting phrases’ for the first time about his views on modern architecture in some speech in 1984 (this book came out in 1989). His words ‘alerted the nation to his deep concern about the effect some modern architecture has had on the environment and on people’s lives.’ So this book is really nothing more than one person’s opinions. His issues lie within modern architecture and how it doesn’t fit in or disrespects architecture of the past with its presence or scale. He has an issue with contemporary architecture and believes ‘it can and should be something as admirable of the past. What should not be missed is Charles’ idea of an architectural Ten Principles (terrible attempt at pun?) ‘- a set of ‘sensible and widely-agreed rules, saying what people can and what they cannot do’.

Obviously this book only exists for one single reason, the man’s status. The book exemplifies his lack of any understanding of what feels like everything, and not just architecture. He seems unsurprisingly very much out of touch with people’s lives and priorities. I have no idea if this book was a successful seller on it’s release, but when its current second hand value is nearly 300 times less than it’s cost of postage (1p www.amazon.co.uk), I doubt that it is regarded as a relevant book. It greatly suggests that had he the power to dictate over the country this one man’s desire would be priority over that of his subjects. Although he does actually try to interfere with the development of certain buildings, and does sometimes prevail.

The point is, what is the importance and relevancy of a man’s status if they did nothing to achieve it. If it gives them some power and somehow entitles them to a (false) sense of importance, what is the benefit of that and why should that be a given?

Amaya /

Rapture and curiosity. We expect both sensations when considering a book. However million of them have been published, we still want to feel utterly delighted and surprised, in a way. These books envelopes must be unique, stand out from the crowd; it is a key point in the process of catching our moody attention in the shelves of any bookstores or libraries. Once they are in your hand, it’s a balance of words, colours and format that will bring you opening it and discover what’s actually happening behind the cover.
Judith Schalansky achieved my ideal representation of a book. What her Atlas of remote islands suggests, is a total perfection, from it first idea to it realisation. Award as the most beautiful German book in 2008, it has been acclaimed for it delicacy and avant-gardism.
The subheading of the book (Fifty islands I have not visited and never will) highlights with humour the distance graphic designers may have to take with their subjects. Obviously it would have been impossible for Judith to go and visit these islands, but remains that thought which is: How can we talk about a subject we don’t know while keeping a total credibility? In information design, visual techniques of representation (eg. mapping) should be use conscientiously. And Judith takes a great care on pinpointing her island with a great accuracy. Each of them is represented on a globe, for an overall point of view; plus, she added the distance, in kilometres, from the closest countries. The visual system she uses to reflect hills and valleys, though it is fairly poetic, re-use some graphic codes we are familiar with, which makes it perfectly understandable (eg. The density of dots suggests a radical change in altitude / the thin fluo details, in contrast with the grey of the nature, represent a human activity. It could be roads, as well as habitations).
I also fancy the guideline she follows: a mixture of objectivity and subjectivity. One part is pure geographical representation of the islands, historical and social datas such as the number of inhabitants and a time-line of some main events. The other part, by contrast, is a narrative: a story about an event she picked and choose to describe in her words. However it is sticking to facts that actually happened, she gives it a touch of romantic that make it less down to Earth. Eventually her book gains a storytelling angle. It’s not anymore a simplistic representation of islands.
It’s in this field that I would like to heighten my efforts: How to create subjective mapping? Which means avoiding a content that would be purely sticking to a technical representation.
How to mix a subjective and an objective approach? Or how to condense divergent ideas about style in a single project.
How to follow a minimalist approach? Being able to convey lots of information with a purist representation.
How to build a book from A to Z? Judith did actually the whole book, from writing the stories to creating the type (Sirenne) and editing it with a great care on details (Pantone and colour settings).

John 500 words

I am hoping to make a program based around a user-controlled feed-based command system, which could be used for a variety of separate programs or apps for use with the ipad.

My project was initially about helping combat the recognized drop in reading interest experienced by children aged 9-11. Whilst researching this it became apparent that the future of the printed word is looking somewhat bleak. It also seems that in the ever expanding world of digital reading devices the ipad will *probably* come out on top, due to its ability to adapt to changes in the digital environment. It also has a sensitive and potentially multi-functional touchscreen, which can be used in a number of ways.

As previously discussed, I have ideas about implementing satellite tracking, voice recognition, multiple non-linear narratives, and a levelling-up and reward system with a view to getting kids to read. I’m happy with the way these ideas can help determine and customize the story, narrative and reading level to suit the child, but it seems a bit boring to just have the text displayed on screen as it would be in a book. Until recently I had no way of displaying text in a way that allows it to be read differently to the printed word, and, crucially, it’s important that the device is able to keep track of how much the reader has read, otherwise skipping ahead and ‘cheating’ would be too easy.

I think I can combat this with the idea of ‘strings’, in this case a string ‘feeding’ from the back of the screen (or horizon) to the front, with words displayed in different sizes according to their ‘distance’ from the front of the screen. The child could read along with their finger, following the path of the string, with the words they have read ‘disappearing’ off the front of the screen and the new word feeding in from behind. The string could loop where there are big words to make the finger hover longer, giving the reader time to read the words, or, seeing as the ‘speed’ of the string is determined by how fast the child reads, they could stop it altogether by simply removing their finger. At this point another facet of the program could come into play, breaking the word down into syllables or spelling it phonetically, if so desired.

How much the string distorts, and from what direction the reader deciphers text, could also be constantly evolving to suit the user. So far I have only thought about this with a view to presenting a new way of reading, and have not considered the implications it could have for narrative impact.

When I was thinking about strings it made me draw a comparison to the Rock Band/ Guitar Hero series of games, as they feature a set of commands on a rail, constantly moving towards the player. This made me think about how a touch screen could be used to convey this sort of ‘rhythm action’ game, and, on the ipad especially, I think it presents some exciting opportunities. Firstly, the Rock Band guitars allow for the use of 5 buttons on one hand and a lever with the other. If playing with an ipad on a flat surface, a string-based rhythm action game could have up to 10 points of command (one for each digit), allowing for a far greater scope of interaction with the game. Also, the player would essentially be tapping or dragging commands over the screen, meaning even if they cannot hear what is happening on the device, a viewer would still hear and see a coherent rhythm taking place.

Perhaps most exciting is the idea of allowing the ipad to access personal files to customize your playing experience. A series of correct notes could trigger a shape to appear on screen, then the next would make an outline appear to be drawn next to it, and eventually it would become apparent that all these elements add up to create a photo of the player (or their friends, or parents, or dog etc.) drawn from the memory banks of the ipad itself. Internet connectivity means that the ipad can recognize where the player is, take a photo of a nearby landmark from google maps and present that to them as they play. This would be especially great if playing someone from another country over the internet, and having their landmarks show up. Maybe a photo from each players ipad could be combined into one image somehow. I dunno.

As it also ‘ties’ in (arf) with the string idea, I am considering switching the focus of my project to the strings, and producing the first five chapters of a story, maybe two songs/levels of the game outlined above, and a bunch of other ideas, including a photo viewer and social networking timeline. I have not even thought about customizable strings usage, for which I’m sure there are many ideas. This way I won’t have to focus on writing a coherent children’s book, which is an MA in itself, and I can present a whole bunch of opportunities using the strings idea.

Pablo 500 words

People and objects. A special and sometimes mysterious relationship.

People has a designed life, from the moment you wake up, everything you see have been designed in some way. We use these products, we need them; but the reality is that we don’t really know anything about them.

There is a documentary called OBJECTIFIED which shows a different point of view of the relationship between people and objects. It also explains how and why these things are made. But for me, the strongest point is that the storytellers are the designer. In fact, you can feel what they are talking about.

These are some of the questions I have sometimes, or questions we should know about. I think we have a horrible education as consumers. In a way, we accept everything as normal, because we don’t know anything about the products we are buying.

– Where came they from?

– Which material are they made from? (Are they toxic?)

– Why they look like that? (Is it the best possible result)

– (If I don’t know how to use a product) Is it my fault, or is the product not really well designed?

– Are they useful or just a luxury item? (Do we really need it?)

– Why we have to buy the same stuff again and again? (Is it normal? Can they produce something better/long-lived?

–

These are two examples/ links of this documentary:

–Trailer

http://vimeo.com/2973112

–Jonathan Ives /MacBook Air

http://vimeo.com/7324647

Another point in which I’m really interested is the relationship between person and object as something really human or emotional. How an object can become essential for somebody, like a part of the owner.

I found these books really helpful for this part of my research:

–Boradkar, P. (2010) Designing things: A Critical Introduction to the Culture of Objects.

–Norman, D.A. (2005) Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things.

In some cases the relationship is really strong. Imagine an amazing car, and somebody driving it. The person who is inside is using it having a new appearance, exactly like an Avatar. In fact people can have an appreciation of this person just looking at his/her car, clothes, house, etc.

The way I’m looking at this theme make a close relation between people, objects and time, because objects and its evolution can define time. In fact, it’s known that people over 50 years tend to define their life’s based on objects they had or have.

The reason I chose this project is because, I feel I don’t have a deep knowledge in this are but at the same time I’m so implicated, I’m surrounded by this every second of my life.

At the beginning I was wasting time trying to “fight” with technology, just by looking at the past, forgetting the good things technology can do for us. So now, my new point of view is trying to use it, looking at the future and the possibilities new thing and evolution bring to us.