Academic Progression

Fallout and Retro Futurism The Fallout series is one of my most favoured Sci-fi franchises, it is a brilliant rendition to the 'what if?' scenario. It  takes place around the 23rd century in an alternate reality where the culture of the 1950s just wouldn't die, but most of humanity does. In this reality, the cold war was prevalent until the bitter end. After nations began to run out of resources in the 2050s the world plunged into a global conflict that ended in 2077, when the then nuclear powers decided to launch their arsenals at each other, enveloping the world in a new apocalyptic dark age, this was called the 'Great war' and lasted only 2 hours.  However, 'Lucky' people survived the great war thanks to the sanctuary of underground fallout shelters called vaults, designed by the vault-tec corporation they officially provide "better living, underground" when in reality they were part of a series of experiments orchestrated by the united sta...

Josan Gonzalez The most inspirational artist that I follow the work of on social media is an artist called Josan Gonzalez. More commonly known under the alias of Deathburger, Josan creates vibrant, bold Sci-fi Cyberpunk and post apocalyptic art that features a mixture of rich and pastel colour palettes that makes his work stand out remarkably. I absolutely adore the work by Josan, it has always been a favourite. As a fan of the subculture and genre of the Cyberpunk movement, I personally think that his work captures the feel of what it means to be 'Cyberpunk' perfectly, this bond of flesh and metal is brilliantly portrayed consistently. I frequently get a 'Judge Dredd' or 'Ghost in the Shell' vibe when discussing his artwork. A piece that I like in particular is the following image. Being able to incorporate a fisheye lens effect into his artwork gives an amazing perspective, the piece has a feeling of depth because of this effect. Although out attentio...

Callum Watt Calum Alexander Watt is a conceptual artist that I follow on Instagram, his work always consists of detailed, diverse character concepts usually with futuristic theming. As I personally find creating futuristic concept art to be an enjoyable exercise and activity, artists such as Calum Watt are certainly inspirational.  The colour palettes that Calum uses are very appealing. His more recent work consists of artwork that uses 3-4 colours that contrast with one another, such as greyish whites combined with vibrant blues, reds and yellows. using minimal colour palettes is typically a common approach with my own work, giving it a really clean and simplistic approach. A concept piece by him that I really like in particular is one called 'Big Red'. What I love about it is how bulky the suit looks due to using a rounded and curved look. Additionally the fiery red really pops out on screen in contrast to the cool grey background.  

Stop Motion Flip Book The seminar today was enjoyable and interactive. The main task was to create a small stop motion flip book, for mine I decided to use my thumb print inked by a Promarker, on each page resulting in different shapes and fades as the ink of my thumb print dried throughout the flip book. When it comes to creating flip books and illustrating motion with them, i'm never able to get the illustration in the right place on the adjacent page resulting in it jumping too for or being in a completely different place all together. However with this flip book, the thumb print jolting forward and backwards added to the outcome of the flip book. Additionally on each page was a letter eventually spelling out the phrase "why must we fight in a mad world". Collaborative Stop Motion During the flip book seminar at the back of the lecture hall there was a large piece of card taped to the wall with a camera and spot light pointed ...

Anonymity I have always found the concept of anonymity to be interesting, the condition of being anonymous gives this notion of  impersonality. Being anonymous often creates a feeling of protection from direct judgment, allowing an  individual to preform  stunts and actions with an immunity to social humility. A prime example mascot costumes, this is rather popular in american sports where the mascot of a specific team would dance, showboat and attempt to haze the opposing team.   The antics of the mascots in american sports have always been a personal favourite, the sport itself, not so much.   Anonymity has also been applied to mascots of beloved characters in places like Japan, rilakkuma for instance. Anonymity in Art and Design Anonymity is a popular approach in art and design, anonymous art can be powerful, it leaves the viewers wondering about the artist. Take Banksy, the England based graffiti artist for example, ...

Part 1 Iconography In relation to the lecture about semiotics, today's lecture with Dr Powell was a two part lecture discussing both iconography and authenticity. For iconography we discussed the definition of it, why it is important for visual designers to have an understanding of how iconographic readings of images work, and how we can apply an understanding of iconography in our own work.   'Iconography is about the rhetoric of images’, that is, it helps us to know ’what images say and what to say about images'. (WJT Mitchell, art historian) Derived from the Greek words Eik ō n (meaning image) and graphia (meaning writing)  iconography came into term during the early 17th century. Iconography is the identification, description and the interpretation of a content of images.  An example of iconographic symbolism that was shown  during the lecture was three images, a dove, a peace symbol and a white flag, the three are commonly interpret  ...

Synaesthesia During our seminar we discussed  synaesthesia  and it's effects in motion graphics and how a person's senses meld together such as visual movement triggering the perception of sound, or so that a synesthete might “hear” colours or “taste” shapes. As for example, Wassily Kandinsky and his work. Music played quite a vital role within his abstract paintings. For Kandinsky, music and colour existed in a relationship whereby each musical note could be distributed to an exact hue. Thus leading to Kandinsky to give many of his paintings music titles such as Composition or Improvisation . He stated ‘The sound of colours is so definite that it would be hard to find anyone who would express bright yellow with bass notes or dark blue with treble.'  Kandinsky: Improvisation 35 Creation Task. We were set the task to listen to any music or auditory extract of our choosing and create a small illustration or poster from what we could visualise by listening ...

Japan Graphics, Volume 1 Japan Graphics or 'JPG' for short is a really interesting book about Japanese Graphic design and illustration. The book was published in the early 2000s and it's a rather bulky consisting of designers and design teams showcasing designs, illustrations and photography. Majority of the designs within the book share a modern colourful styling with one another yet have their own unique appeal.  To put it bluntly I love this book and it's contents. Coming across this in the university library was like striking gold to me.  What caught my eye when I was searching for some inspirational books was the way the book stood out among the rest, the book cover has a very minimal design to it but the cover itself was made out of this textured plastic that reminds me of bubble wrap. The front of the book has a piece of foam shaped like a page or document icon housing the name of the book 'JPG' in a simple pixel font. A great hom...

Mathematical Nature.  This lecture introduced us to structure, chance and algorithms in a selection of visual and graphic arts. Fibonacci Sequence. The Fibonacci Sequence is a  series of numbers where a number is found by adding up the two numbers before it. So for example starting with 0 and 1, the sequence goes 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, and so forth. Fibonacci Spiral. The Fibonacci Sequence actually appears in nature in the form of the Fibonacci Spiral,  from sunflowers to hurricanes to galaxies. Sunflowers seeds, for example, are arranged in a Fibonacci spiral, keeping the seeds uniformly distributed no matter how large the seed head may be.  Below is an example of the fibonacci Sequence of sunflower seeds. When it comes to the Fibonacci Sequence and Spiral a  Fibonacci spiral is a series of connected quarter-circles drawn inside an array of squares with Fibonacci numbers for dimensions. The squares fit perfectly together ...

Theory as Practice Essay For our theory as practice essay I am a little undecided about which topic to continue on with, the session with guest lecturer Jonathan Lindley and his lecture on Anti-Branding and 'Adbusters' I personally found it to be an interesting subject to talk about. We were given the task to:  Come up with two essay questions relating to the chosen topic.  To provide two definitions of chosen topics Obtain a book relating to the chosen question/topic.  The two topics I am currently still torn between are: Discuss the effect of subcultures on influential graphic designers.  Brand versus Anti-brand. How have graphic designers worked with or against brands, and to what effect?  Task 1: Essay Questions Anti-Branding: Do anti brand movements effect major companies or is it overlooked without change? Does anti brand provide a solid enough point to inflict a reaction with the general public? Can anti brand ...

Typographic Transformation During a seminar we were set a task to undertake where we had the choice to either create an illustration or animation to make a typographic transformation where both words are opposite to one another an example of this is hot and cold or light and dark. I chose to do an illustration for this task. my initial idea were to use the words 'Life' and 'Death' and using these words, depict an illustration about trees and their life span, beginning with a seed as it sprouts to a plant or tree eventually loosing all of it's leaves and dying.  I created a rough design that provided me with a basic shape and intention, the roots spell out life as the canopy would spell death I initialled intended on creating an illustration of this using either Adobe illustrator or Photoshop.        Developing upon this session I in fact changed the idea to something a little more simplistic, although the life to death design is a potential idea I much...

Venture Through Huddersfield Before joining the university of Huddersfield I had never visited Huddersfield. To gather my bearings I thought it would be a good idea to venture through the town to not only find my way between the train station and the university but also find some places of interest and leisure that I could visit throughout my time at the university. I came across a church in the town centre, although I personally prefer more modern structures, the architecture of the church was appealing, I might consider drawing architectural features of the church in my spare time. I took two photos of the church using my phone, one part I particularly liked about the church was the clock tower with it's angled corners.                In comparison to Manchester, I did notice that Huddersfield has a very brown/black colour scheme to its buildings, the brickwork having a sandstone look to it. I...

During one of Rob Lycett's Thursday lectures, one of the Various Books we were suggested to read up on was a book called 'Everything Sings' by Denis Wood. The book features an innovative portrayal to mapping, the maps are rather unusual and possibly considered impractical which is what I like about them, Maps are created with a purpose and a job, to get you from point 'A' to point 'B'. Denis creates these maps but in a very different perspective instead of showing roads and train lines, he illustrates a map of a small vicinity where the only thing illustrated are little circles and squares labeled "disfigured trees". Denis surveyed a place called Boylan heights and throughout this book he documents various neighbourhoods using creative and interesting subjects such as 'Squirrel Highway' where he observed how the local wildlife would traverse, in this case Squirrels would use the telephone wires to travel safely over roads.  One of my pers...

After receiving the brief for TFD1413 Theory as Practice - Assignment 2: Essay. I have annotated information, useful notes and important deadlines that can help me generate ideas and an understanding of what will be required to create a good strong essay that relates to both the brief and subject matter. The three subjects of the essay consist of:  Discuss the effect of subcultures on influential graphic designers and/or animators. In what ways have the prequel or sequel influenced contemporary graphic design and/or animation practices? Brand versus Anti-brand. How have graphic designers and/or animators worked with or against brands, and to what effect? As groups we created small mind maps and/or notes about the three subjects such as, what do they mean to each of us individually, and examples on how we could plan out and eventually create a solid essay based around one of three subjects . Bellow are scan copies of my own annotated brief for this Assignment....