Study Task 10

Things To Consider When Presenting

Don't rush.

Be comfortable leaving gaps between saying things so the audience can digest what you've said and so you can prepare for what you're going to say next.

Avoid using 'crutch words' e.g. 'urmmm', 'so...', 'like', 'um' etc.

Power of three. This is probably not going to be a priority of mine as the content of the presentation is more important in this context I think, clarity will be my main focus, not charisma.

Bookending. This will probably help keep my presentation focused.


Presentation strategy/ structure/ script

I will probably work through my year chronologically, to show how my understanding of my practice has gradually begun to solidify over the course of the year, and then sum up what I want to take forward and develop at level 6 at the end.

Slide 1

Hello


Slide 2
At the end of Level 4 I was working in a more abstract way, with a focus on the abstraction of everyday experience through selecting unusual perspectives of the subjects of the images and using incorrect, flat colour. The notion of the strangeness of everyday experience is one which I have realised is becoming integral to my practice and despite this being at the core of the work I was priducing at the end of level 4 in a thematic sense, when I look back at it, aesthetically that doesn't come across. the work's appearance I find to be a little soulless and actually as a whole I feel like it's a tad contrived, as I was forcing the strangeness upon the work's inspiration by choosing the perspectives and changing the colours. 
I managed to find a much more authentic route towards what it is I'm trying to communicate through my work this year, through the COP module, which will be discussed in greater detail later on. 
I had also decided at the end of Level 4, and over summer, that I wanted to revisit drawing as a process, in a more representational, traditional sense because I felt I hadn't done any for a long time and that actually it is one of my strengths as an image maker, and as such should not be neglected. This more abstract/shape based work does not come as naturally to me.       


Slide 3
For the editorial brief, I chose the author Cormac McCarthy because I was familiar with his work but wanted to read more, I also knew that the style of his writing and the themes he tackles would be a great catalyst for revisiting a more traditional, drawing based process due the visceral and heavily descriptive style of writing he employs. 

Slide 4
I really enjoyed working more in this way, probably because it had been so long since I had done it, and despite trying out a slightly more abstract, 'clever-cloggs' type approach in some of my thumbnails, my finals were actually just some of the initial drawings I had made. This was an important step for me because up until this point I had always thought that successful editorial work, more often than not, required the use of visual metaphors and other clever tricks which my work really isn't that suited to, but now I realised that actually, very simple ideas work just as well if they are presented with an appropriate tone of voice. I only wished I had made the images vignettes so they would sit better on a hypothetical page. I also didn't want to become reliant on working from photographs.              


Slide 5
My work for the 'Printed Pictures' brief built on the spontaneous/ drawing based practice the editorial work had helped inspire and I really hit my stride here. I developed a combination of drawn, collaged, and photomontaged processes which helped me avoid just drawing from photographs 


Slides 6-7

- piccies


Slide 8
I was originally intending to make a short book out of the images I had created in response to 'No Country For Old Men' incorporating some quotes from the book, but ended doing a really botched job of putting it together so decided to make five digital prints of my favourite pages as well for the submission, as this was the other option we had. They came out really well, but I hadn't designed with with a view to them being stand alone prints, so they aren't the kind of images that people typically buy to frame and hang on their wall. The fact that they were digital prints also meant that they were much less marketable than hand pulled prints would have been, especially given the ideal price to sell them at based on the cost of printing them. They were not very economically viable. It's no surprise I didn't sell any at the colours may vary exhibition because of these facts.

Slide 9 
Here are some examples of how poorly put together the book was, and the stock it was printed on wasn't pf a very nice quality really, I was able to use better for the prints.

Slide 10
After I had made it I also realised that conceptually it was a bit of an oddball and wouldn't really fit in anywhere. The book 'No Country For Old Men' already exists and I'd created this strange abbreviated version of the story, or even a story which isn't the story of the original, using fragmented parts i had picked and chosen from it in combination with semantics. It felt like a bit of an uncomfortable outcome in it's redundancy, but it made me realise that my work is often much more concerned with narrative than I'm aware of. I had essentially tried to create my own story, or at least inspire an audience to infer their own through this project.   


Slide 11
I really enjoyed making the sting, predominantly because I wrote, played and recorded the music for it. This was actually really important, as it kept me interested in the work through providing a different creative outlet to inspire me, especially as the process of putting the sting together was exceedingly tedious. It was also a very satisfying in a holistic sense to have art inspiring music and vice versa and this is something i'm curious to keep investigating as part of my practice in the future. not explicitly referencing music I'm making in the illustration work I make, but more just making sure I make music at the same time, to see if one informs the other and whether it could help to improve my work in either camp.     


Slide 12
I chose the Hookworms poster for one my live brief projects, mainly because I like the idea of the freedom afforded by that medium, anything can go on a gig poster, but also because I wanted to improve my grasp of type and how it can be incorporated into my work because i don;t really feel confident doing that, as these first attempts showcase quite well. I realised the importance of planning every element of a design into ones ideas, as I was trying to force it into these images in ways that weren't working because I'd just bashed the images out. The two finals I created actually used very different applications of type, one very much set out of the way of the image, and in the other, a more embedded approach. I don't really have a preference for either but I've learnt to consider the application of my work as a whole rather than just thinking that I can always just bend the work into what it's supposed to be. Sometimes one can. but not always.
 
Slide 13-14

- Finals

Slide 15
I thought that seeing as my work so often seems to present itself with a narrative bent, that for another live brief I should choose the 'Penguin Random House Student Design Award', and decided I would try and create a cover for 'Animal Farm.' I took the fact that visual metaphor isn't the best fit for my work from the editorial pieces I had created earlier this year and decided that I would take a similar approach in that I would just work on creating images that I liked after absorbing information about the book and letting it stew a while. And not to use pigs.       

Slide 16-17

- finals


Slide 18
Once the opportunity to marry together my illustration practice with music presented itself again (after the sting) I decided that it would be a no-brainer to take it (although this time I wouldn't be writing the music obviously)  and also just make sure I was entering more live briefs, and not to stop that just because the module requirement for it had ended. Record cover artwork was also something I had never really tried before and fancied having a go at to see if it would ever become a viable part of my practice, I figured it could be as the only requirement really is that whatever you design be square.  


Slide 19

- Print (want to do more, could have done iterations, more developed)


Slide 20

- Finals

Slide 21- 24
Favourites. All very different approaches left me feeling a little more confused about my practice and how I wanted to develop it aesthetically. I felt I had lost my way a bit after having felt so happy with the way I was working up until this point, and feeling that my work was becoming more cohesive, only to now be seperated into more disparate strands again right at the end of the year.  

Slide 25
Messy hands
I found the overall experience of working as part of a group an enjoyable one. It was interesting initially to see how ideas bounce around, and the discussion between individuals brings about the growth of a seed of an idea. Whilst observing and participating in this initial brainstorming process was very satisfying, there were slight problems with the overall experience. Namely, because everyone in the group knew each other pretty well and got along together well, the attitude towards the work was very relaxed. This meant that the development was very slow and we were a little distracted every time we came together to work on the idea. We also tended to overlook the more serious considerations that would have to be made if our idea was going to work (e.g. budgeting/costing/logistics).   
Not my cup of tea.
Interdisciplinary collaboration would be more relevant to my practice.
Didn't feel particularly useful

Slide 26
COP/incongruity. This was where I began to tie back in my main creative concerns from the end of Level 4, but through the lens of the new visual aesthetics I had been developing this year. I realised they had been bubbling away under the surface and subtly influencing the work I was making (particularly my ambiguous sense of the narrative) but just hadn't yet been presented an opportunity to take centre stage.  


Slide 27

- Very brief touch on Heidegger

Slide 28
Truck stop example of incongruity in art, how that relates to Level 4 but closer to what I was trying to achieve with it and how I managed to get closer to that through my practical COP work.

Slide 29-32
COP photos

Slide 33-35
COP drawings

Side 36
Conclusion