Pros and Cons of my Chosen Career

These are the pros and cons of my chosen career Graphic Design from my opinion:

Pros: 

 - Technology is improving and advancing all the time, we are now in the technology age whcih means that all the software will improve.

 - We have design software such as the Adobe Suite which is very important from a Graphic Designers point of view cause this is the software the majority of them use for example: illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop. 

 - There are Graphic Design companies big and small in towns and with in 15 miles. 

 - There are job openings for Junior Designers. 

 - And the most important thing is Creativity. You cannot be a Designer without creativity it isvital for the process of design.

Cons:

 - Digital Creative limitations, it may take some time for new software to be produced therefore limiting what you can create.

 - A lot of big Design companies are situated in large cities which is a down side for me as I want to stay located around Chesterfield.

 - The Design industry is very competitive and may be hard to find a job.

 - You have to meet deadlines when working for a client and it has to be up to their specification on what you create so in fact you are also working for the client as well as the company. 

 - And education is a big con as for many of the jobs you need to complete a BTEC Level 3 or higher in chance of competing to get a job in the Graphic industry. 

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese Artist and Sculptor who creates his works upon his political beliefs. Weiwei has been arrested by the Chinese Government because of the works that he creates, he is only trying to get his voice and opinion across and in doing this he was imprisoned and as a result got his passport taken off of him. This resulted in him not being able to visit his newest exhibition which is held on the Alcatraz Island in the notorious prison of Alcatraz in San Francisco. Here, Weiwei has made sculptures such as 'With Wind', 'Trace', 'Stay Tuned' and 'Blossom', these are just a few of which are situated in the prison. 

My favourite of the sculptures is 'Blossom' as it takes place in a cell in the medical ward on the island. In the cell there is a sink, toilet and a bath tub all with individually made white ceramic flowers in them. It gives a sense of purity within the room as all the walls and piping and floor are deteriorating and these stand out and shine out above all in the room.

http://www.for-site.org/project/ai-weiwei-alcatraz/

Artist Interview

The Artist that I chose to Interview was called Wayne Green, he is 44 and is a local Graphic Designer in the Mansfield area. He used to run a small design company named Scott's Signs, however he now co-owns a bathroom showroom company and does all the advertising and digital media for the company. To create his adverts, he uses the design software Coral Draw which is not used as often anymore and I too have never used this software but he said that he self-taught Graphic Design to himself after doing a small project he helped his friend with and that is what kicked his Graphic career off. 

Sculptor - Anish Kapoor

Anish Kapoor was Born in Bombay on the 12th of March, 1954 and moved over to England around the age of 5 years old. He studied at Hornsey College of Art, then Chelsea School of Art and Design.

He became well known in the 1980s when he created his sculptures with such simple materials such as granite, marble, limestone, pigments, plaster and wax. I particularly  like his pigment sculptures as I feel it generates from his Indian back ground with the rich colours and clothing of India as he uses a vibrant red and yellow to present this. Since then he has created more famous works, one wich is extremely well known called Cloud gate which is a massive stainless steel object which is placed in Chicago, America and is an interactive piece where the public can go and view and touch the sculpture and it reflects the whole city sky line. In more recent years he has created the sculpture in the Olympic Park in London for the 2012 Olympic Games. 

Everything is Connected 

On our trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in the first term I came across a sculpture which I was very fond of which is called 'Everything is Connected'. It is a sculpture which is created like a billboard with light bulbs to spell out the sentence. This I thought was very clever as it suggests that literally everything is connected for example with the light bulbs, they provide us safety at night and enable us to see in the dark and then you can think about humans and how we evolved etc.  

The piece was designed by Peter Liversidge, he often creates humorous pieces and he is driven by the power of the exploration of 'the idea'. He completed a foundation degree at Carlisle College of Art and then went to study at Plymouth then Montana University in America only then after to move back and live in London. 

This piece really inspired me when I went on the trip as I wasn't in to sculpture as I thought that they were just large objects people designed however Liversidge combined typography in with sculpture which was great for me to view.

Leading Designer In My Career

Alan Fletcher was born on the 27th of September 1931 and died on the 22nd of September 2006. Fletcher was a British Graphic Designer and Typographer. He was described by the Daily Telegraph as  "the most highly regarded graphic designer of his generation, and probably one of the most prolific".
He was born in Nairobi and moved to London when he was five. He studied at Hammersmith schhol of Art, Central school of Art, Royal college of Art and Yale school of Architecture in 1956.

When he studied at Hammersmith school in 1949 he befriended Colin Forbes and Theo Crosby. After a year teching English at a school in Barcelona and moved back to London then studied at the Royal Arts college. He married Paola Biagi from Italy then took up an Architecture course. He went to New York doing work and befriended Bob Gill, and was commissioned by Leo Lionni to design a cover for Fortune magazine in 1958. After a visit to Venezuela, he returned to London in 1959, having worked briefly for Saul Bass in Los Angeles and Pirelli in Milan. 

He founded a company with Bob Gill and Colin Forbes and named it Fletcher/Forbes/Gill where they worked for clients such as Pirelli, Penguin books, Cunard and Olivetti. Gill left in 1965 and was replaced by Theo Crosby, the name then became Crosby/Fletcher/Forbes. More partnership joined and the the company evolved into the Pentagram in 1972 involving clients such as Reuters, Lloyd's of London and Daimler Benz. Fletcher created the V&A logo for the Victoria and Alberet museum in 1989 which is my favourite piece of his as he takes the stem of the "A" and cramps the ampersand up to it to somehow create the stem again, he also took away the crossbar of the A and the ampersand still shows that there is a crossbar. He has also created a piece for Pirelli where the logo is bended and deformed in a spiral shape, it is an effective piece of his work and one of his also well known pieces. 

Another one of my favourite designs from fletcher is his piece call beware wet paint as it is a really simple but yet effective which is in different colours which are all bright and is just simply wet paint dripping down the canvas to present this. 

He has created a piece that is named "I have nothing to say" which is of a man screaming out with his fists in the air with a yellow background, I really like this piece as it stands out to me, he has only used two colours in this piece black and yellow. 

It is a very good piece and may have political meaning behind it for instance that the public want to get across their views but are afraid to do so as the government are in charge. I really do like this piece because of the political meaning behind it as there are different subjects to talk about. 

Graphic Design Company

Brand Nu

This is a graphic design and illustration company which I found very interesting, and is led by a designer called Radim Malinic which is based in London.

The work in which is created is very colourful but also includes a lot of typography which I am interested in which is why I like this company. 

Brand Nu focus on graphic design and illustration in their works, I have found that just by looking through the page of images that they create very simple yet heavily effective projects and they include: magazine covers, signs, posters, booklets, t-shirt design, web design, brand logos including credit cards and more. 

I find this page very influential and I will use it in future to impact on my work to create a better understanding in the graphic design and typography industry.

http://www.brandnu.co.uk/work/

In his Career he published several books on creative thinking. He published a book in 1942 named How to Think Up and this is where he came up with the idea of brainstorming. In 1954 he created the Creative Education Foundation, which were sustained by the royalties which were earned from his books. Along with Sidney Parnes, he developed the "Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process". He co-founded the Creative Education Foundation's Creative Problem Solving Institute, the world's longest-running international creativity conference.

Sidney Parnes/Alex Obsorn

Creative Thinking

Sidney Parnes was born on the 5^th of January 1922 and died August 22^nd 2013. He was renowned as an expert on creativity and the founder of the creative studies program at the SUNY Buffalo state.

Sid Parnes had partnered with his advertising executive Alex Osborn in the 1950s which then they went to create the Osborn-Parnes creative problem solving process which were based on Osborn’s brainstorming techniques and began to organise a method for teaching it. Parnes, an Army Veteran from World War 2, he had earned his master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1953 and then completed his Doctorate in the following year. He first met Osborn at the Creative Problem solving institute conference and he then used that as a creative retailing conference at the University of Pittsburgh where Osborn then recruited him to help develop his ideas.

In 1956, Parnes joined the faculty at the University of Buffalo, which offered a course in creativity, as a professor of retailing. In 1967, he went to Buffalo State to start a pilot program in creativity and became the founding director of the International Centre for Studies in Creativity. He became president of the Creative Education Foundation in 1967 after the death of Osborn and served until 1984, then was chairman of its board of trustees. He continued to serve as a lifetime trustee. He also became director of the Creative Problem Solving Institute, which was held annually at Buffalo State from 1966 to 1984. He published more than a dozen books on creativity, notably the influential “Creative Behaviour Guidebook” in 1967, and hundreds of articles. He spoke at conferences, workshops and seminars around the world and received numerous awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Innovation Network.

Alex Osborn

Osborn was born on May 24^th 1888 and died May 5^th in 1966. He was an advertising executive and the author of the creativity technique known to us all as Brainstorming. He was born in Bronx and spent his childhood in New York; He was a graduate of Hamilton College, where he had worked for the school newspaper.

Green Patriot Posters

 

Green Patriot Posters is a website which subscribers can create posters to the site and upload them for the public to view. The posters that are designed are campaigning against fossil fuels and against deforestation and ways in which we are destroying our planet and atmosphere.

 

I used this site for inspiration for a previous project which I have just completed which was visual communication in art and graphic design where I had to create a poster about protesting. I chose the subject to promote green energy which is wind energy, solar power, hydro power etc. n the end I made a poster of wind turbines with the slogan "BUILD OUR FUTURE" to leave it up to us as society to fix our planet and mistakes.

Shepard Fairey

 

Shepard Fairey is an Artist, street artist, graphic designer and illustrator and lives and works in the USA. He was born on February 15th 1970 and is known for his "Andre the Giant" sticker campaign in the 1990s where he emerged form the skateboarding scene and became an artist and political artist. Now he is most commonly known for a piece he created during the 2008 US election of Barack Obama called "HOPE", he created this piece by just using three different colours: red, blue and cream. He used these colours to create Obama because he believed that they sent the message of Patrionism to the public. He didn't want Obama to look like a black man but to make him a man to nationalise hence the colours.

 

In the past he has created rebellious pieces and with his second child on the way at the time he had the thought that he wanted the best future he could possibly get for his children so therefore he created a piece with Obama on for his political status and to advertise him and his party to win the election which he di, Fairey just wanted what's best for his children as they are the future of America.

Eye Magazine Article

Drive In Cinemas

For my professional practice magazine I chose to do the Eye Magazine, this is because it contains a majority of graphic design and typography which I am very interested in.

 

I came across an article about drive-in cinemas in the US from the 1930s in their prime to now where they are run down and even housing built upon the car parks where they were situated. I read the article and it described how they went from being extremely popular in the early 20th century where all the young adults would come and meet and have a great time out to how they got less and less people visiting the cinemas. What was interesting about the signs were the typography and how they used pop culture to advertise the cinemas by giant signage with high text close to the font Britannic bold. They used nylon background with flashing light bulbs and bright colours to welcome visitors into the cinemas.

 

Now all that remains of these signs are run-down rusted left overs from what once was a great era of American pop culture are these giant signs which is the little that is left of the great drive-in cinemas.

Drive-in cinemas have always looked spectacular to me from living in the UK as we don't have the weather for it over here and it would be a great experience to go to a drive-in cinema.