first three weeks

I haven't post on here since I was requested to do so on my foundation course. I have now been asked by my degree course to evaluate my work via my blog. For someone who has been a keen writer in sketchbooks I'm aware that this change will be difficult for me to adapt to. I'm already on my fourth week of uni, some would argue this blog should have started before? I wasn't too sure if there would be specifications but aside from the content I believe the rest to be free reign. 

Here I am on my third project without anything typed up about the previous two. My first two projects were group orientated, a concept that scared me. We were told to go to a specific area that was located around my universities campus and to inspire. We found a road that was behind the others, tucked way from view. The coloured buildings stood out from the dull monotone surroundings with unusual cobbled streets to match. It took me to the seaside far away from zone 1 of London that was until we saw the signs. The houses were covered in aggressive signs mainly focusing on parking. 

The feel of the road began to change, I felt like we were being watched by the neighbours, we were not welcomed. We saw this one sign that said, "Offenders will be clamped and melted down" making it sound like the person instead of the car. I thought about how I could apply this to other issues within the social housing that surrounded this street. I wanted to tackle the issues of litter, dog waste and noise with signs saying "Offenders will be put down", "Offenders will be silenced" and "Offenders will be disposed of" etc. This idea was half met with positivity from my group as a result we decided to stick to purely parking. I was disappointed with this decision because I felt that we could of stretched ourselves further but not all members were willing to put the work in. 

We decided to embody the residents of the street and create our own individual signs for no parking. We agreed on the language for all 8 signs but then went our separate ways to produce two each. I feel that this was a mistake and felt that although we were becoming individual residents we weren't fully embracing the team qualities of the brief. We aimed to plaster these around the building to mark our territory before our presentation. Due to team members this was no longer possible, as they didn't complete their signs until the morning of the presentation. I found that we weren't very prepared to present resulting in something that I wasn't proud of. Upon watching the other presentations I realised that talking over imagery wasn't very engaging. Videos and even a quick fire quiz were exciting to watch. We spoke about the process and what didn't work instead of delivering a presentation. We went with the typographic route embracing a graphic design discipline however I feel that it wasn't fit for purpose.

The second project was another group project, which I wasn't totally enthusiast about however I was wrong. It was a one-day brief entitled piece of paper, with us given exactly that! We were given a large piece of white paper, which we could only cut or write on. Put in a group of five it became clear that it was two against three with many decisions. Although that was a fair democracy I ended up being in the group of two students 90% of the time. This was a turning point for myself and decided to take a positive spin on the situation. Where I had spent the first project hating the course I decided that I wanted to throw myself into the project regardless of the fact that it wasn't my preferred idea. I ended up having a great day compared to how I felt when faced with the previous group. 

We decided on a game called candy warfare that even came with its own hashtag. We set up an Instagram page as a simple way to be able to display our imagery at the end of the day but also to encourage members of the public to engage with us via social media. We cut out a circle from the sheet of paper enabling you to place your head in. We created rings around the hole creating a target with the aim of the game to throw sweets into someone’s mouth. We hit the streets of London with our game first going to Trafalgar Square although we soon had to move on. The security at Trafalgar Square we failed to consider as we were thrown out after around 15 minutes. This experience wasn't as embarrassing as I imagined however it was still a first for me. Moving on to other areas of London I took on the role of photographing our interactions with the public. I felt safe in this role as I found it difficult to confidently advertise ourselves to strangers in the street. On the way back to uni I uploaded our images to Instagram and we took a short amount of time to discuss how we were going to present. Although we prepared in a similar time frame to the previous brief I felt that our stronger content allowed for a more successful outcome.

From these two projects I have learnt new things about working within a group. From previous experiences I find group work extremely stressful, as someone will always let you down. However this was the beauty of a one-day brief, you were all in it together. The limited time scale didn't allowed for people to shy away from work. It sounded scary at the beginning, the thought of having x amount of hours but now I'm excited for the next one day project. On Friday we have been asked to bring in masking tape and newspapers, the unknown excites me. The idea of bouncing of each other’s idea but ultimately having these random days away from the major briefs that have been set to fully enjoy the course and have a laugh with my peers.