Existentialism - Thursday 30th November

Existentialism is the philosophy of human life, it is the philosophy of sensitivity and awareness at often an uncomfortable level. A philosopher in the field by the name of Jean-Paul Satre believes existence precedes essence. He made theories and concepts based on everyday existence and the complexities of relationships. he believed in bad faith as a lie to oneself to ease the complex infiniteness of potential. We are radically free to become something other than what we are at the present and meaning is transient, changing and impermanent. Also there was Albert Camus who believed in life affirming, appreciating the under appreciated and how choices add vibrancy to life. The last point is interesting and after some thought is something I think I agree with as our choice are our own chance to shape our life to how we want it to be. Lastly there was Viktor Frankl's theory of Logotherapy, the idea that life is based around finding a purpose and logo therapy is about mans search for that meaning.

Self and Selfing - Wednesday 23rd November

A keyword of this lecture was essentialism and how similarly to the last lecture things have a set of characteristics which make up what they are. This implies that there is a given essence prior to existence. There was also the idea of the ephemeral or the short lived, living in the the moment. As a whole the lecture was very similar to the previous weeks.

Autopoesis and Techno-Climate - Thursday 16th November

This lesson was about the keywords of the new brief. So autopoesis is talking about self, every aspect of me as a living system contributes to making me as a person. We think of ourselves as autonomous or free to make our own choices in life, however we can never be self dependant as we learn from each other. We have to interact to form character which is clear when you look at successful people. People who have grown up in poor backgrounds can be more driven to do well in life as a result of their upbringing they want to get out of poverty for their future family. An example of this can be seen with many South American footballers rising to prominence from the favelas for example Neymar. This lecture also talked about how as a social creature responsibility means not to crush others ambitions. The other keyword techno-climate was then addressed, it is a climate constantly changing and influenced by technology. It is about how you are directly influenced by technology. For example the power that social media has over people and how they desire acceptance or praise from these platforms, therefore when they receive it they want to go back to it to get more.

Peter O'Toole - Thursday 19th October

Personally I was very excited for this lecture as Peter O'Toole is my favourite illustrator and I have followed his work for quite a few years now. I actually also have quite a few items with his illustrations on my favourite being a JD Sports World Cup bag on which is illustration documents the history of the World Cup through iconic events. I have been inspired by his work with Adidas in particular the city series posters which led to me attempting my own vector drawings of shoes in my self negotiated project at the end of first year as seen below.

The main thing I like about his work is that a lot of his work is based around football or fashion, two subjects that I am personally very interested in. Also with Peter being from the local area it was inspiring to see his progression as an artist to go from canvas paintings to doing illustrations for huge clients such as Disney and Nike.

Essay Development - Thursday 19th October

The basis of the session was the homework given to us from last weeks session. We used the keywords and potential questions that we made the from an exercise based of perception. The first task we did was a drawing one were it was folded into three sections and then each person drew a section of an animal whilst unaware of the other sections that had been drawn so that the end product was a mixed up creature. The second task was similar to to this except with writing. Each person would write a question based on their essay on the paper and then fold it over so it couldn't be seen. The other people would then have to write their answer based upon the keywords given at the bottom of the page.The results I received for mine are shown below

Perception and Interpretation - Thursday 19th October

This lecture was similar to the week before exploring the idea that there is no limits to how many ways in which something is interpreted. Another quote which resonated with me was "The world is a meagre approximation on the basis of a meagre sum of observations". This made me think about my studio project and avoiding the obvious. So with my project the obvious thing to do would be to list the actual facts about how the damages to the toy occurred, however I could write from the perspective of the child playing with it suggesting that the damages had been done during the detailed scenarios that have been created in the child's mind through the power of imagination. Everyone at some point has thought like this and created scenarios when playing as a child, therefore it is something that everyone can relate to thus showing the importance of my object.

The Association of Illustrators: Derek Brazell - Thursday 12th October

Although this guest lecture wasn't directly about graphic design I found it really interesting and it had useful information about freelance work however some of the details differed to design. The idea of sending an A5/A6 or physical mailer to those you are trying to work with is something I had thought about but was not sure about layout. Derek suggested to do one side of the card as your work and then the other side is a message, in some instances you can personalise the work for the recipient if you really want to work for them to show the extra effort you are willing to make. He did briefly mention that designers do not have the same rights as illustrators which is something he believes should be changed as illustrators own their work whereas design rights move to client if the work is freelance or to the company you work for. This is something that I think was good to be made aware of as you do not want people who know these rights to exploit your lack of knowledge and you do no then get credited for your work.

Essay Feedback - Thursday 12th October

This seminar was to get feedback on our initial ideas about the essay. My feedback from tutors was that the topic of car advertisement and branding was a very relevant topic given the current controversy about placing restrictions on the cars you can buy after a certain date in order for them to be more environmentally friendly. Also I was told that this relevance meant that there was a lot to explore around the topic which is good. From this seminar I also gained some information that could be transfer to my studio work and that was the concept of pareidolia which is seeing faces in things. This is a very popular photography style on social media at the moment and it may be something that would be fun to experiment with in my work maybe in this project or future projects.

A Genealogical Method - Thursday 12th October

This lecture helped me to understand the studio object brief a bit more as it defined what a genealogy is in this instance. It was about not defining absolutes or facts but instead creating a multidirectional non linear history. This works with my project quite well as it means with the hand me down cars I can make up interesting stories about how it got damaged rather than simply quoting the less exciting facts like the tyre fell of as the rubber rotted due to it's age. So I will keep an element of truth about the narratives I create however genealogy is selective and creative emphasising of a particular narrative, so I will push the boundaries of this in my work. Another quote from the lecture which reiterates this is no total representation of reality just partial re-imagination so essentially making up stories. Also as my object is old its interesting to see the changes in how toy cars are made today to how they were then which is something that I picked up on the lecture after one of the slides said "Notions of what is good and bad change over time".

Dr Simon Woolham - Thursday 5th October

The work of Simon was inspired by his upbringing in Wythenshaw, therefore I could understand aspects of it as it is not too far away from were I live. His style of work is not something I personally would use however some of the ideas behind his work and the messages he was trying to convey were interesting. His work in 2004 with the Lowry Collection was a good experiment of removing Lowry's trademark people from the paintings as it broke the simplicity of the paintings down. It reminded me of modernising the piece as if it had been made today on different layers on a computer and the people layer had simply been removed. In my opinion Simon's best idea was his PHD work called In Search of Shortcuts. I liked how when he had made a piece of work an interactive map would show where it had been made, it is in my opinion a good way to archive the work he has made and it would be interesting to see whether or not different areas affect the quality of his work.

Master of None: Sarah Smizz - Thursday 28th September

I found this guest lecture quite interesting despite the fact that it was more illustration in my opinion. It was good to see Sarah's journey to were she is now and was interesting to see how she used her passion for art to overcome difficulties. I thought that her idea of teaching training doctors and nurses how to picture note was an incredibly clever idea as a lot of the learning process of them in learning not so interesting things so by doing her method she is making it interesting to learn. Also her idea of making radiotherapy treatment rooms less industrial is a good idea as the perception which they currently give off just makes people worry more about the treatment they are going to have. Obviously it will never be a worry free process with something like that but the inclusion of art could make it easier to face. A quote Sarah concluded with was something that I agreed with, it was "There's knowing how to work with others but not following people blindly". This to me says that although you work with others in an already formed system if you think there's a better way things can be done then you should do something about it instead of just carrying on, much like the work of Sarah with the NHS.

Contextual Portfolio Sketchbook - Thursday 28th September

This was the introduction of the contextual portfolio sketchbook. My initial feelings about this were that I think that it is good practise for industry as it is a standard thing to carry around a sketchbook at all times. I do feel however that it will take some adjusting to at first and drawing is not my strong point so I am hoping that by using this sketchbook regularly my drawing ability will begin to improve so that there in some sense of progression throughout the sketchbook. I have ideas to experiment with sketches that have selective colour as this is something that I have seen other people do and I think it looks really effective if done correctly.

Essay - Thursday 28th September

In this lecture we had the 5000 word essay for this year introduced to us. I had some initially thoughts on potential topics for the essay such as the branding of people. By this I mean the way in which sports people and celebrities in general are given their own brand and often logo. This has become essential for them in todays society to stay relevant in order to get more publicity and sponsorship which to them equals more money. Interestingly even people are being branded after their death for example Roald Dahl, this helps their legacy live on longer. Another idea I had was inspired by the sudden influx of Deliveroo delivery people being everywhere. I thought it would be interesting to see how since their rebranding in September 2016, the company has grown massively which shows the importance of branding. My third idea which is the one I am swaying more towards for the subject of the essay is the branding and advertisement of cars. I believe that there is many topics to explore within this as there is the recent push for every company to have a small car aimed at young people and targeting the city lifestyle. This is a change in target market for the luxury brands such as Audi with their small and more affordable Audi A1. Also there is the topic of many cars being made by the same company but yet people have different perceptions of each them. Media can also be seen as an influence in the car world as media plays a role of creating stereotypes which make certain brands seem more desirable to the general public, usually showing elite brands like Range Rover consequently making aspire to own them.