DEFINE THE DESIGNER

Being a 'multi-disciplinary' designer is difficult. It means you're a 'Jack of all Trades' but an expert in none. By saying 'none' I probably discredit myself; I'm quite good at a lot of things, but I'm not ready to 'settle' into one distinct path just yet, and am not sure when I will be.

I've been told a few times that I can't draw. When I was in Year 2 (7 yrs old) I was told by the teacher that I was "too heavy handed' and should use my pencil a little lighter. Again when I wanted to take GCSE Art (13 yrs old), I was told I "might struggle" because my "drawings were weak". I've never really let this discourage me too much, as I've been strong enough to pull myself through (I got an A* in my GCSE, and an A in my A-Level).  The same situation has haunted me when I've needed to curate portfolios for the endless University Applications I've subjected myself to. 

Truth is, I can draw, just not in the traditional sense.

The problem is not the drawing, it's that I don't fit the system.

This turns into a crisis when applying for Creative Jobs. My Foundation Diploma is in Art and Design. I specialised in Graphic Design/Illustration, but I don't feel confident enough to approach an organisation or professional and sell myself as that. I went to an Interview for BA Graphics Design where the interviewer said to me "the problem with you is that you're into everything, aren't you?!"

Hence, my BA is in Design. 

"What is Design?" You ask.
"Design is everything" I respond.

I experience a constant battle with my chosen course of study that goes something like this:
"What do you study at University?"
"I study Design"
"What kind of Design... Fashion?
"I could if I wanted to, but the kind of Design I study is generic, so if I feel the best approach* to a subject matter is through Fashion Design, then I'll work in Fashion."

*represents the point where the interest of the person I'm talking to is lost, and the beginning of me trying to wrap up the conversation asap.

What I usually fail to address is that I enjoy reading Design Theory, I enjoy the tactilities of making things, I enjoy print, colour, and my most recent work has been performance based. Purely because the understanding of people around the topic of Design, or more specifically (so Fucking) Goldsmiths Design is limited, it's hard to keep them interested without putting them on the course.

What we do at Goldsmiths is very ecclectic/eccentric, and therefore quite difficult to pin down, and explain in one sentence. I'll provide you with a few examples.

1. The kind of Design I do is multi-disciplinary, I will define the problem in a given situation, and then use my range of skills to solve the problem or explore the parameters in the most effective way I can.

2. My approach is somewhat similar to Speculative Design, where I envisage possible/probable futures, and design objects or concepts to aid the explanation of these imaginings.

3. I'm an 'ideas first, tools later' designer. I'm great at thinking critically and subverting and challenging norms, then applying the correct tool, method or approach my idea in order to materialise it.

I initially signed up to the course because the course leader, Matt Ward was depicted in the course video, saying that "Design will make (you) Future-Proof". I must have watched the video 10-15 times from the time I applied to my first day. I'm still trying to work out if his assertions are true. 

Am I Future-Proof?

What does "Future Proof" mean? 
Does it mean that I'll be employable no matter how the industry evolves over the next 47 years? (the time it will take for me to reach state retirement age in the UK if it does not change in the meantime). 
Does it mean that I'll be provided with skills that are intangible, and therefore no matter how the tangible aspects and demands of the industry change, I'll still be useful?

Maybe the fact that I "can't draw" doesn't matter so much after all.

HISTORIES AND THEORIES

Design on the Streets

GOOD WASTE BAD WASTE:

Looking at the design of our streets, which will more often than not be taken for granted, I have seen some little quirks and interesting things that the un-observing eye perhaps would not notice. 

Take the bends in these railings, for example. Why are they like this? I saw on a documentary once, that when the 1960s housing boom occurred just after WWII, there weren't enough raw materials around to generate everything from new, and so the stretchers that were used to carry soldiers on the front line were laid out to function as fences.

Juxtapose this clever recycling with this not-so-necessary appearance of bottle caps and a 2p coin in the tarmac of the Bus Lane nearby to Waterloo station.

 One can't be certain whether or not this was intended, but chances are that passers by, or the workmen themselves threw litter into the path of the tarmac roller, and the items got pressed into the road.

If we were to label this a form of 'participatory design' then surely we have to mark it as an unintentional and ill-choreographed one, due to the fact that it's messy and involves what is considered litter. If, however, more consideration had been taken in the bottle caps' placement, or someone had been aware they were there, Art could have been made. But instead we are left with a poorly tarmacked road.

MAKE SPACE STUDIOS:

('''E 'PACE STUDIOS)

I also have an issue with the naming of these studios on the rail-route into Waterloo station. In being titled 'make space' studios, surely they are suggesting that they've made a proud and creative space in London for Artists and Designers to work.

The fact that they are temporary structure portacabins does not imply that they are making a permanent space, but instead making use of it. They've been there for best part of five years now I think, and the falling-down of the letters only adds to the irony of the poorly named, poorly maintained studio situation- No wonder it's so difficult to be taken seriously as a designer; we don't set ourselves up to be respected. The trick to design is being thorough, and this is not a good example of this.

EBAY BUS:

This Ebay bus is genius. It's just a shame that there isn't more of them. I suppose the novelty would wear off if there was. I haven't since seen any brightly coloured busses to take photos of.

It's eye catching and promotes EBAY, which is great, and it takes Bus advertising to a whole new level. To be on a bus that goes toward Lewisham is great for the budget-hunting target-market too. It could be considered critical design, as it changes our standard perception of a Bus from a big and red form of public transport to a moving billboard, and the big blocks of colour are a different kind of advert to what one might expect on a bus, but it totally works. I suppose all advertising could be labelled participatory design, too.

CARNABY

I took a wonderful trip to Carnaby Street, London. It's a magical oasis of colourful little shops just off of Oxford Street. I like that it advertises itself as its own community; everywhere has this unspoken sense of soul and life and elated, artistic spirit.

The main thing I noticed were the collectively cool staircases in some of the shops I went into. This one was in a book/art/trinket shop called 'We Built This City'- their storefront is arguably the most enticing throughout the whole of Carnaby, too.

I think I picked a good time to go. The shops mainly open from 11am on a Sunday till about 6pm- most of London was still asleep, it only started to get a little busier at 12/1pm but not unbearably so.

My favourite shop on Carnaby had to be MONKI because of its AMAZING staircase...

It's full of mirrors and coloured shapes on sticks and is really cool if you take the time to stop and appreciate it.

I also like MONKI because they make my type of cute/quirky fashion affordable. They're not too loud in their cheekiness, but just enough that I enjoy wearing their clothes. I think the majority of my popular wardrobe is MONKI... especially my PJ's.

I love the coloured buildings. I know that in Carnaby the colour and aesthetic of the place is geared towards making it a tourist attraction in order to draw people into the shops to spend their precious pennies... but I like to think that it can be embraced and appreciated in its own right as a pleasant place to spend time. I would add a couple of coffee shops so that people can sit and enjoy the atmosphere. I'll have to go back in December to see if they've put any Christmas Lights up.

The Ragged Priest:

I discovered The Ragged Priest about a year ago when I was in a store in Reading that just happened to stock a couple of their items. I was drawn to them because they were tops with aliens over where the nipples would be. I ran into problems though, because TRP's items only seemed(at the time) to exist in the likes of small and xsmall sizes. I did search for TRP on Asos and their own site, but everything was a little too expensive, small and I didn't know how it would look on me.

However, when I walked into the Carnaby Store, everything changed. They stocked mediums and larges, and they had things in rainbow! They even offered student discount!

This staircase was in the Lazy Oaf Store. Lazy Oaf was a very strange experience because of the way everything was laid out; they only had one of each item on display- it was a very anti-clutter shopping experience but it was strange because although very exclusive, their range does not fall into the same category of typical 'designer luxury' because all their clothing is so playful. Playful might be the wrong word because they play on sarcasm and apathy...

FIRST FORTNIGHT AT GOLDSMITHS (BA DESIGN)

I am in the first day of the third week of the Design BA course at Goldsmiths University. For the past two weeks I've been entertained by the variety of Technical Studies Workshops that have been made available to us. The workshops were as follows:

-Creative/Physical Computing

-Metal

-Digital Fabrication

-Plastic Fabrication

-Graphics

-Textiles

-Wood

-Photography

I thoroughly enjoyed all of them and regret that there will be a time where I have to choose three of them to learn about more thoroughly and leave the rest behind (for the time being, at least).

In Creative Computing we learned about basic coding, and our outcome existed on an 8x8 LED panel, where we could code for any specific LED and colour it based on the pantone colour system.

This was all within reason of course, as LEDs are fabulously luminous and somewhere the yellows blurred into the greens and pinks burned into reds... but we worked it out relatively well.

 Metal was like stepping into the unknown. I had no experience of how this material behaved or what it 'liked' or 'disliked' in terms of manipulation and adjustment. I spent most of the morning concerned that I would hurt myself on such a 'harsh' material and was pleasantly surprised when I created some seemingly 'soft' outcomes.

Plastic Fabrication was like working backwards... It took us ages to create any form of outcome and I'm not even sure it was worth it. I feel like these objects would have benefited from further refinement, as their final form did not do the process as much justice as it perhaps could have.

On the bright side, now that I am aware of the process I can most certainly plan in more detail my next encounter with a vacuum former and make my end product a more purposeful and successful one.

BRUTALISM

THE UGLIEST BUILDINGS IN THE WORLD.
-1960s BRUTALISM.

Apparently there are two types of responses to Architectural demands:

1. Utilitarian structures built to fit traditional aesthetics.

or

2. Modernist structures which seek to change the criteria or definition of beauty so the building works to fit the demands of technology.

The resultant of #2 is that we have buildings and Architecture of service, utility and function- "lean" buildings, as Simon Thurley, a visiting Lecturer at Gresham College stated. 

These facts help me understand what I want to know;

- What Brutalism is, and how we can define it.

- Why Brutalism was born, and what the circumstances were.

- What the varying opinions on the style are.

- How and why some Brutalist buildings have been destroyed, whilst others have been listed.

Now, research tells me that Brutalism begins with a term "Beton Brute"- meaning raw concrete, and a man called Le Corbusier.

The movement came after the Middle Ages Classicism and the Eclecticism of the Industrial Revolution, and can be dubbed the "Modernism of the Welfare state". Post WW2, Britain required housing; cheaply, effectively, using materials

Shortly after came Peter and Alison Smithson, and their Hunstanton school, where every piece of steel used had to be justified.

BEAUTY NEGLECT AND DECAY.

NEGLECT AND DECAY 

-Neglect and Decay was the original title for my project, as I was intrigued by the book "Beauty in Neglect and Decay", where old, abandoned houses and buildings over the world are documented in a photography diary. As something my parents would label 'ugly' or 'disgusting', I wondered how these Photographers were warping the 'parental truth' in order to find the 'beauty' in neglect and decay. I decided that it was their own, personal outlook on the situation, and decided to try and find beauty in otherwise 'ugly' or 'neglected' things.* 

As Human Beings, we have basic requirements and needs, as described in Maslow's Heirarchy Of Needs: 

1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc. 

2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, etc. 

3. Love and belongingness needs - friendship, intimacy, affection and love, - from work group, family, friends, romantic relationships. 

4. Esteem needs - self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc. 

5. Cognitive needs - knowledge, meaning, etc. 

6. Aesthetic needs - appreciation and search for beauty, balance, form, etc. 

7. Self-Actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences. 

8. Transcendence needs - helping others to achieve self actualization.  [1] 

But, as we have evolved, and seemingly in the western world, the ease at which we can acquire these has increased, and the needs for different levels of the system can be combined. For example, one could combine 2 and 5, by studying Law at University.  

In my studies, I have chosen to look at a form of art that fulfills multiple levels in the Hierarchy. It provides Shelter, Safety, (in protection from elements), and fulfills some Aesthetic needs. But apparently only for some people, due to varying opinions as to whether Brutalist Architecture actually provides Beauty and fulfils the Aesthetic requirement. 

Brutalism is the government response to a Second World War ravaged country. "Communities sought inexpensive construction and design methods for low-cost housing, shopping centers, and government buildings"[2], and Architects responded with raw, uncompromising structures that utilised the scarce amount of materials available at the time. 

*For example a piece of black mount board with a clay-dust induced footprint on it could be made pleasing to my own eye with the careful use of a paint pen. 

I then started looking at how these patterns could be used to my advantage in creating pieces that looked good. I carefully considered my use of materials to parallel with the subject matter concerned. I began working with and onto wood. The first examples of this are where I used some MDF board, recycled from office/warehouse interior, onto which I painted a derelict, unused, commercial building (which has now been demolished). Although focusing heavily on the detail and precision associated with the work, I didn't behave too carefully around the wood, as I wanted to hold onto the 'neglect and decay' starting point I had found.  

In a similar way to which the original patterns had been produced- accidentally- I had left the water pot for my paint resting on the wood. It produced a fuzzy, predictable yet undefined and fuzzy watermark on the work- Just as an office worker would leave their tea cup on a desk. I dabbed away the excess water with a paper towel, and quickly traced the outline of the new-found 'pattern' with my paint pen. Of course, after the first few watermarks, these were no longer accidental, but instead I was embracing the pattern that evolved on the work. 

*picture of long board* 

In wanting to explore this further, I began searching for patterns that accumulated accidentally in my environment. I came across some cracked plastic on a bin label, and decided to combine this with a drawing of some houses on one of the pieces of board I had 

*picture of bin pattern* *picture of houses in Gosport* *picture of black mount board blue/white* 

I then began working on more of these little pieces, concerning myself with how to increase the skill level associated with them, which eventually resulted in me looking at artists that create deliberate patterns. I found Japanese Artist, Yayoi Kusama, who embraces pattern in the environment, covering objects, herself, and the surrounding area (in this case a room) in captivating patterns. This is a simple idea that creates a lasting impact on a viewer, and I continued to look through Kusama's work until I found her 'infinity net', a concept where a shape tessellates continuously over a page. Although a two-dimensional drawing, on mass they culminate to give a sense of depth, and as the name suggests, a sense of infinity. 

To the artist, these nets were and still are "visualisations of hallucinations that have recurred since her childhood" [3] However, I read that she would sit, and relentlessly paint them until they were finished. Hence, to me, the patterns became very much about the process and the construction of them.  

 

I began drawing my own nets, and decided that I liked the triangle ones best, as they connected in the easiest way, and like the brutalist buildings, were the most economically sensible to continue with. I found an artist that calls herself Marenbruin, and she draws these triangles onto pages in a carefully considered manner, making the viewer question what they are looking at. To me, the works look delicate, yet futuristic- a complete contrast to the heavily metallic dystopian futures we are all subject to. 

 

 I began drawing my own versions of this, and discovered the varying of the size of the triangles could result in an interesting piece. However, these are highly time consuming, and require little skill, and so I set about painting a silk screen with the tessellating pattern on, in order that it was reproducible. 

While the prints were drying, I began to work on the initial ideas around buildings again, producing a pencil study of The National Theatre building, photographing some Brutalist tower blocks close to my home, and visiting the Barbican for further photographs. I learned that cheap Graphite pencils are perfect to draw the concrete structures, as they are arguably the rawest material an artist can use to produce images. 

Whilst at the Barbican, I found a postcard designed by Margaux Soland that resembled my own work, and when researching further found Holly Would, who produces some similarly- orientated collages. The nature of these buildings seems to lend itself to collage, and I experimented with my own ones. 

My own collages were done on painted acrylic backgrounds, always with intentions of being able to draw patterns onto them too, but this wouldn't always work.

From this, I could try and combine my interest in Brutalism with the patterns onto the black mount board.  

somewhere along the line came buildings 

then brutalism 

then combining patterns and buildings to compliment each other 

[1]http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html 

[2] http://www.essential-architecture.com/STYLE/STY-M11A.htm 

[3] http://www.victoria-miro.com/exhibitions/444/