Thoughts - 30th April 2010

30th April 2010

Acrylic wall mounted holders from euroffice.co.uk 257545 178mm(w) x 375mm(h) £3; 019189 A4 £3; business card holder 019200 £1; DL leaflet holder 165008 £3; A4 lit holder 019375 £7.

All useful ideas and good prices.

Staples - DL lit holder 318600 £5.49; A4 lit holder 318592 £7.49

Not convinced that the staples ones are any better - but they do have the advantage of being able to go and look at them in the shop.

Woke up thinking about the whole acrylic lettering / poster on the wall of exhibition stand. A more cost-effective idea might be to print off the words to appear across the top on the printer in the College shop as it prints to any length and will be OK to 4 feet. I can then paint the wall with the negative space a shape using emulsion. This might be a much cheaper option and worth exploring.

Spent the morning amending the text pages of the book and completing the how to spot helvetica page. The mock-up of the Book proved very useful once again as I decide to change the order of the pages so that they told the story.

Possibility of a commission - which will dig into the time I have to complete this work - but might be worth considering as it is likely to offer a financial reward which will help if I can balance my time between the two things.

Thoughts - 29th April 2010

29th April 2010

Considered a feedback form to be available at my stand so that I could gather some information - I vaguely remember someone doing this last year and seeing people had written very tasteless things onto the form. But it might be worth thinking about.

After chatting with Chris yesterday about how to get the book brackets made and his suggestion about buying acrylic ready made ones I investigated some more online.

The benefits of the acrylic clear holders is that the book will have to be slotted into the holder and be supported vertically as well as along its bottom. I am concerned that people will be clumsy when returning the book to the shelf and they will crash to the floor.

Brought my laptop into college so that I could work on adding page numbers to ALL the template pages. As I have already created the Ashby pages and some of the Burton pages I also had to add page numbers to each of those. This took me 4 hours in total.

The mock up of the book also made me realise that I need to plan and prepare the pages ready to add text for the front of the book. For the remaining 2 hours of the day I created those pages as PSDs converted them to jpeg and printed them off. I had a look at them when I got home and realised there were some mistakes that I needed to address.

Contents will now be:

Preface- which Gary Love has confirmed he will write

Introduction- brief intro

Serif/Sans Serif- talk about the difference

History of a typeface- discuss where it all can from (Bauhaus, Swiss Design)

How to recognise helvetica- a guide to

Images- broken down into a-z; A-Z; 0-9 and symbols

Acknowledgements

Bibliography.

Thoughts - 28th April 2010

28th April 2010

Editing text ready for putting into Books. Created a mini mock up of a Book so that I can work out what needs to go onto which page. This will also give me a page count to fill with text. Also realised that I am going to have to put page numbers onto each page.

Spent some time thinking about how to present / display business card...postcard...leaflet and what solutions there are that I can buy off-the-shelf or whether I need to consider a bespoke solution.

Thoughts - 27th April 2010

27th April 2010

Spent last couple of days working on a personal project 'Overton Book'.

Today the weather was clear so I spent an hour in Ashby taking photographs and then 10 hours turning them into pages for the Book. Managed to get ALL of them done and I had a bit of a headache at the end but one down 2 and half to go.

Plan to pop out with camera tomorrow and get final few for Burton Book.

Got some prices from designer regarding the exhibition stand. They gave me 2 options... first to have it in 2 parts on 5mm foamex cost £80+£50 for artwork ... or... second vinyl lettering £145+£50 for artwork.

I have not yet had a response from Hardy Signs so I will try to pop in or phone them tomorrow, This at least gives me a cost to compare them with.

Got an email from Chevrolet. Burton College has won 1st 2nd and 3rd prize and we have been invited to an awards ceremony in London on 10th May. I will not be able to attend as I need to be at a meeting between 6-9pm in Moira. But the team will go so no problem.

Thoughts - 24th April 2010

24th April 2010

Talking to people about my trouble finding brackets and my gardener said why not go and see the blacksmith in Snarestone and see if he will make them for you. I need the brackets to be quite robust as I do not want the books falling off and hitting the floor and getting damaged. People are not careful with things so I need the 'shelf' part to be at least as wide as the book. It is not like the books are being displayed in a shop and not touched - I want people to pick them up and look through and it is their clumsiness of returning them that I want to try and mitigate.

Thoughts - 23rd April 2010

23rd April 2010

Developed film that I had in the Pentax that was given to me at Christmas. Not good. It appears that the winder initially took the film on but after about 2 shots it jammed. If I am using film camera in the future I shall stick to Olympus OM10 or Canon A1.

Spent some time with the images I took yesterday and loaded them into the templates. They are looking good.

Spent most of the afternoon looking online for brackets for my books. Feedback from tutors was: "go to Ikea" "find one online" "go to 3D and make it yourself". I really don't want to make it myself as it will look clunky and ham-fisted. I will continue investigating other ways to get them.

Did find an acrylic plate stand on www.displaysense.co.uk for £8.74 +VAT each (PS200). If I cannot get anything suitable I have that as a fallback and also it is a good benchmark for costs.

Thoughts - 22nd April 2010

22nd April 2010

Did some research regarding paper for the marketing idea A6 double sided paper ranges from £9 to £20 and A4 satin gloss paper ranges from £10 to £36 so I think I can work on the marketing idea based on producing them myself.

Booked the studio for a couple of hours to take images that can be described as 'product' shots. At the time I thought they were not too good. But once I had downloaded them and had a look through there appeared to be a few good ones. They were a weird selection of products and collections of products but I am hoping to have some that I can use on my website when I have processed them.

Trip to Curborough Farm Craft Centre and took some photographs of the use of helvetica that I can use in the Burton helvetica book.

Responded to the Design Agency about the questions they raised concerning the print for the exhibition stand for the show.

Thoughts - 21st April 2010

21st April 2010
Watched the second part of the 'Goldsmiths - But is it Art?' programme. Seems that all they can do to get their name known and their work noticed is to exhibit their work. They found that Gallery Curators were not asking them to exhibit in their galleries then they either made use of empty shops or offices to run their on exhibitions. Did bring home how important the networking and contacts are if you are wanting to make a living from your creativity.

Beautiful afternoon so decided to make use of clear weather and take photographs. 20 questions about my intentions from admin woman when calling college put me off. I did however get a lot of admin and backing up done so the time was not wasted at all.

Thoughts - 20th April 2010

20th April 2010

Sent an email to Hardy Signs asking about acrylic lettering / poster for my exhibition space. I need to find out how much it is likely to cost; make sure they will be able to produce something by the deadline of 28th May and see if they have any better ideas of how to create what I am after.

Sent an email to a Carve Marketing and Design agency for a price for the exhibition space letters / poster - so that I can do a comparison. I also asked them for a price for the 'postcards in a pouch' idea.

Sent an email to Gary Love to ask if he wanted to write a piece for the preface for the books. I gave him till the end of this week to say whether he was interested and his deadline for words would have to be 10th May. This is the date I have decided I shall send the books to Blurb.

Set up a home studio to get some images of products that I can use as backup images for any of the books. Also took some still life images as I need to boost that side of my portfolio as I am getting some interest in my services in that area. To this end I have booked studio for 2 hours on Thursday afternoon to capture some product shots. If I get on with the marketing in the way I have in my head at the moment then I will be creating some mini portfolios that can be tailored to suit each client.

Decided to back everything up today which is a huge drain on the day. But once I start getting busy on taking photographs and processing them ready to go into the book I wont have time to do this sort of tidying up and admin. I find that I can only get on with things when I know that all the admin is in place and sorted.

Thoughts - 19th April 2010

19th April 2010

Mocked-up the marketing idea today - postcards in a pouch - and took them to show Marie to see if they pass muster. She likes them - I shall find out how much they might cost to create tomorrow.

Thoughts - 18th April 2010

18th April 2010

Felt very below par today so took it easy by pottering about in the garden and took lots of painkillers.

Thoughts - 17th April 2010

17th April 2010

Was going out with camera today as weather forecast was good. But instead decided that my horse needed my attention - which was exhausting.

Thoughts - 16th April 2010

16th April 2010

Went for a walk around Burton to look for uses of helvetica. Spoke to the Octagon Centre Manager to make sure I was OK to take photographs of the shops. After about half an hour I realised I needed to sit down for a coffee and after spending 10 minutes doing some research of ideas in Rymans - but bought nothing, just looked, I was very disciplined - I decided to return to college.

I did feel quite self-conscious taking photos it has been so long since I have been out with the camera.

I prepared 20+ images using the templates I had already set up. Steve had a look at the 20 and he liked them a lot. He thinks it will work. He found the fact that the image is behind a letter challenges the way you look at the image - do you look at what I am directing you to in the image or do you follow the shape of the letter the way you would write it.

Feel quite gee'd up by this and I also think it will work. Some images are nicer than others - which is to be expected.

There are clearly some letters that are more difficult to be creative with so I shall have be aware of those when I'm out on the street taking photographs.

If it took a day of working slowly to prepare a third of a book then I'll need 12 days to prepare all 4. This is achievable and if I start to work quicker and smarter it will be no problem at all.

I plan to take the whole week of the Bank Holiday (w/c 3rd May) to be out and about to finish off taking photographs. In the meantime I will be off out to take photographs as and when weather conditions are suitable.

Here's my favourite from the day:

Thoughts - 15th April 2010

15th April 2010 - 4am

I know it's too early but I do have some very creative ideas at this time of the morning so I picked up my notebook and started scribbling.

Worried about how naff and unresolved this idea might end up being. It will be a lot of work and might not come together. Perhaps 300 odd images is just lots of work with no final outstanding image - that someone might be interested in buying. Do I need to think about reducing the number of pages and making the books a hard cover rather than soft cover.

Will have a chat with Pete about ideas today and see if he has any advice. I will print off copy of statement of intent as well as a mock up of about a dozen pages of one of the books to take with me.

Watched "Goldsmiths - Is it Art?" Their final show was about selling their paintings and getting work. The point of the FMP is to pull together all the things learnt and being to create a path to the future you want to have in photography. But as I am planning to go on to do the Degree perhaps it can wait for the show for that. Perhaps the FMP needs to be something that I love and enjoy. I know that some of my images sell and that people like. These images are not liked at College and wouldn't cut the mustard for the outcome of an assignment. They are two different markets.

I need to get some more Moo business cards prepared for the FMP show. Perhaps the reverse will have the stand design on it along with some of the nicer images used in the books eg 'handmade' and 'EPSON' using different colours on the back. Think they do 50 cards for about £12. I will need a business card holder as well as the book holder/shelf.

Evening:

Chatted to Pete about the disconnection between the 4 books. He suggested ABCD as books will contain alphabets:

A = Ashby Amsterdam

B = Burton Belper

C = Coalville Cardiff Crewe

D = Derby Donington

Think the point of my choosing Amsterdam Burton Ashby Moira in the first place was missed they were not quite as arbitrary as first thought. Amsterdam is an international city where the impact of design and the use of helvetica can be seen everywhere. The idea was to compare that and show how it has worked its way down to places as local as Ashby, Burton and Moira.

However I quite like the ABCD idea and with all flights being banned for at least 2 days because of the volcano in Iceland and because I ought to try and be a little careful with money for this and because I do want to be in the country on 6th May in order to be able to vote then I think sticking to mainland UK is a better idea.

Cardiff will give me the chance to capture helvetica in use in a foreign language which was one of the main reasons for visiting Amsterdam.

Have got my enthusiasm back for the project now. I will go with the ABCD idea and I'm sure my sister will be happy to come to Cardiff with me rather than Amsterdam.

Also during the afternoon I went to see a Business Advisor. She had quite a few ideas about FMP show which I shall start working on. I will begin test trading after FMP show (20th June) and I need to put together my preferred ideas for how to start marketing myself before my next meeting with her.

Here's another worry - am I taking on too much for this coming year - or is it the kick up the ass I need:

* FMP then Degree

* Mayor

* Test Trading

* Work and preparation for family party

... time will tell.

Thoughts - 14th April 2010

When you don't work and are not constantly writing down the date you sometimes forget whereabouts in the year you are. Lots of birthdays happening this week and have already sent off the important cards. Was elected Deputy Mayor on Monday evening which means that come 10th May I will be the Mayor - think litter will be my key thing and might organise a village-wide litter pick. The other potentially exciting thing is that more powers might be passed back down to Parishes - all depends on what happens at the election on 6th May and whether Government follows the ideas through. But whatever it will be exciting.

Today we should have some feedback on our proposals for this here FMP. I do hope so because I decided to hang fire over the Easter break on taking photographs but did continue doing a lot of reading.

Had some feedback about helvetica. Was asked why I had chosen 3 local areas and then Amsterdam. That I need to think a bit more about the 4 and the connections between them. perhaps the 4 need to have the same names... that will make for 4 books with the same title and will not work.

OTHER IDEAS:

Smallest village to largest city ... wont work as Helvetica is an urban typeface and will be difficult to find 70 images in a tiny village!

North South East West... Scarfkerry, Lowestoft, Lizard Point, Grigadale ... too much travelling

Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales ... too much travelling

Smallest city in Wales = St Davids. Smallest city in England = Wells. Smallest city in Ireland Kilkenny. Smallest City in Northern Ireland = Armagh or Derry.

4 corners = Dover, Redcar, St Davids and where else?

4 corners of the National Forest ... places not big enough.

Brewing towns = Burton - Marstons, Leicester - Everards, Wrexham - Sandstone, Gateshead - Newcastle Brown ... to contrived

Town twinning - see which towns/cities in UK are twinned with places in Switzerland which is where helvetica was invented... there are only 2.

French names in English Towns... Ashby de la Zouch, Belvoir in Leicestershire, Beaulieu in Hampshire, Rievaulx in Yorkshire, Pontefract, Jervaulx in Yorkshire... too contrived.

Places with the word FONT in the name... can only think of Chalfont St Peter in Bucks, Fontwell in Hampshire and Bedfont in Houdslow.... that would have been nice, but once again I think I am trying to force it.

However I do like the idea of having some local places because it will only be local people coming to the show so it needs to be something familiar to them.

Need to think more about this because none of those really fit.

Thoughts - 7th April 2010

7th April 2010

Having caught up with myself I have now relaxed as far as FMP is concerned - plus it is Easter and we are supposed to be on a break.

Have been working on updating and tweaking my website which I am very pleased with. I can see how it will become a very useful tool allowing clients to view their images in a gallery.

Am seeing the consultant at Apricot on 15th April and that will be very useful - we will be talking about business plan and making plans and preparations for a summer of test trading.

Have received all info from UCAS and Staffordshire University accepting me for the degree in digital media production. Really looking forward to it as I think it will be much more academically rigorous and more challenging - which I really need as I do feel as if I have been cruising these last 2 years (and criticised if I ever go at my full speed!)

Have been reading the two books I bought (Swiss Graphic Design and Helvetica Forever) as well as magazines that have been arriving plus a book covering a variety of photoshop skills.

I am a little worried about my photoshop skills. I know I should do everything on layers and find I do not do this as a rule - so I need to make sure I do. I also need to find a way of incorporating the things I learnt at Focus on Imaging on the Adobe stand about embedding meta data into images so that they are more easily found. This needs me to work through the way I transfer images from camera card onto PC and the workflow for doing that. It will involve using Bridge, Lightroom, Photoshop... and as yet I have not found the logical way to do this.

Thoughts - 1st April 2010

1st April 2010
Statement of Intent needs to be in today. I overheard Alex saying that they will have a look at them over Easter and let us know if there are any problems when we are back. I asked if I could start shooting or working on it over Easter. I do not want to waste 2 weeks waiting for them to validate my idea. He seemed slightly miffed and said that I would not be taking my final images over Easter - but test shots would be OK. He also suggested that I should be prepared to amend my idea if they do not think it is OK.
Well that has really demotivated me. I have done so much work on this over the last week and am really fired up and receiving so much encouragement and support from everywhere else.
Well I shall spend the Easter holiday reading up on the whole Bauhaus, Constructivists, Modernism groups. Start writing a blog so it is all recorded somewhere - not that anyone will read it - but at least I know where it is. This will help me feel that I am working towards it.

Thoughts - 31st March 2010

31st March 2010
Lars Muller - Helvetica Forever Book arrived. It is all I thought it would be and will be very useful. Look at p.47-reason for the name; p.99-thoughts on helv; p.65-why so successful.
Prepared the Statement of Intent; printed it off and handed it to Rebecca. It was received with a huge wave of disinterest. I waited until I saw Chris and handed it to him.
Bought a City Guide book of Amsterdam so that sister and I can find our way around when we go on 6th May.
Handed in Learner Support Fund form to Student Services so that I receive the final payment of my hardship grant. I will need this as this project is looking to cost in the region of £300. I am buying a new 16GB stick to put all the information regarding FMP onto and keep it separate from all the other year 2 work. My current one only has 2GB left and I don't want to be worried about filling it up.
Got home to find the Swiss Graphic Design - The Origins and Growth of an International Style 1920-1965 by Richard Hollis had arrived. Wonderful book.

Thoughts - 30th March 2010

30th March 2010
Need to remember to put Design Museum into research section on Statement of Intent.
Found out that the typeface used on road signs is called Transport and the one used on signs on the motorway is called Motorway - all is good with the world. It also means that the books will not be full of images of road signs now.
Took photos on trip to Nottingham Contemporary Gallery so that I can try out the templates I have been creating. I am also trying to get my eye in to spot helvetica and saw it on: Fire exit signs, NCP car parks, M&S shop, Orange, America Apparel ad, numbers on lorries. Went to see Star City exhibition which was very good and interesting - but not interesting enough for me to want to pay £7 to go again with college on 15th Apr.
Templates:
Created all the templates for ALL the letters - upper case, lower case, numbers and symbols. I used Helvetica LT Bold to start with which although is part of the helvetica family I decided that Helvetica CE was better. It is not a chunky version of helvetica so there will not be much of the image visible but enough to show the letters.

The wrong 'a' - although chunky it's not correct.

Helvetica CE - much better.

Thoughts - 28th March 2010

28th March 2010

Woke up once again with ideas for this project.

Intro ideas for the books: Ubiquitous - like air, like gravity. It's there we just don't know it. Developed in 1957 it was extremely popular in 60s and 70s,. Was usurped by grungy typefaces in the 80s by designers who were rebelling against their parents, Helvetica has enjoyed a comeback in the mid 90s and remains in use today despite typefaces being available at the click of a mouse.

The clear, neutral, modern typeface that guides us through out life and is commonly use on: Ambulances, Olympus, Fire Exit Signs, Kawasaki, Energiser batteries, Nestle, Evian, Post-its, BMW, Microsoft, Panasonic, Scotch, British Gas, Staples, North Face, Toyota, Caterpillar, Oral B, Harley Davidson.

We see more than 3,000 corporate messages a day, many of them are printed in Helvetica.

Ask Gary Love, MD, Reach Marketing if he would like to do the Preface - he loves helvetica and is an expert on typefaces.

Ideas: Does blackberry give GPS co-ordinates? Would that be a way of identifying where the photograph was taken? Rather than Market Street, Ashby perhaps 412 : 16'0.

Equipment: Use same camera body - Canon 5D and make sure I have Macro, wide angle and zoom lenses this will ensure I am equipped for all situations but not carrying masses of equipment and needing an assistant.

Use different techniques: abstract, multi-exposure, portraiture, long exposures, depth of field.

Use photoshop skills to avoid them all looking like snap shots. Avoid parallax on high up images.

Design: Have the image taken being visible through the shape of the letter. Otherwise it will just be photos of signs which might become very dull after 20 pages or so. As I need 80 pages for the softcover book to have a spine I will use:

lower case a-z = 26

upper case A-Z = 26

number 0-9 = 10

symbols = 8

Total pages = 70 then there are 10 pages for preface and intro.

Decided to set up a template to see if the idea would work. Took a while but sorted out how to create it.

Thoughts - 27th March 2010

27th March 2010
Helvetica - the Latin for Swiss.
Developed in 1957. Among one of the most widely used san serif typefaces in the world.
Some of the companies that use helvetica in their corporate design: 3M, American Airlines, BMW, Jeep, JC Penny, Lufthansa, Microsoft, Orange, Toyota, Motorola, iPhone, iPod, NASA, New York City's Transport system, British Railway signage, National Health Service, British Airports Authority, Danish Railway Co (DSB).

Helvetica is a neutral typeface. It allows the text to convey the context rather than the typeface.
MOMA in NYC exhibition 50 years of helvetica exhibition ran from April 2007 - March 2008.

Helvetica is widely considered to be the official typeface of the twentieth century. It communicates with simple well proportioned letterforms that convey clarity that is all at once universal, neutral and undeniably modern.

I need to see all the number and capitals so that I can familiarise myself with it. Cos I think I am not identifying it correctly at the moment. I need to become an expert and to be frank - a bit of a typeface nerd.

Thoughts - 26th March 2010

26th March 2010

Woke up thinking about how all this was going to work and realise that I will be producing 3 books of quite similar images of road signs - the thought of going to Amsterdam is a relief as the words in a foreign language will help break the monotony.

Need to think about how I will present the images in the book as that will determine how I take the photos. If I use digital SLR but want square images do I develop a grid to ensure I compose images based on a square or just make sure I spend the time when processing the images to crop to square.

Also could it all be in black and white - that would be a lot of film to process. Or perhaps use digital and then convert to black and white.

I also like the idea of the 'montage' and using found images. I am still striving to be messy and loose in my image making and my style (I still find this very difficult). I will collect tickets and leaflets from my travels as well as using the photographs I take to assemble the book.

Borrowed books from the library:
An Approach to Type - John R Biggs
Beware Wet Pain - Alan Fletcher
Graphic Design Timeline - Steven Heller and Elinor Pettit
Design History a Students' Handbook - Hazel Conway
Design: A Concise History - Thomas Hauffe
Bauhaus 1919-1933 - Taschen

Ideas:
Find out what was being designed at the time Helvetica was being designed to give some context to the world the Swiss guys were living in. Alan Fletcher uses typefaces as raw material in his art - he used an alphabet to create his iron garden gates. They are beautiful.

Evening:
Scanned in lots of images from the Montage and Beware Wet Paint books I borrowed from the library so that I can get inspiration to be messy.

Worked up ideas for the way I would use the 6'x4' wall space and instead of 1 foot high letters I decided the negative space in the 'a' was a much more intriguing design. Added Helvetica to the top and my name above it.



I think I will need new business cards to reflect this design - oh joy another chance to get things from Moo - I love that company and the effort they put into the packaging of their products for you. Delightful.

Thought about costs - four 10"x8" softcover books from blurb of more than 80 pages will cost £20 per book approx. I will also need to source the brackets to hold the books they might be approx £10 each but will ask Chris for advice. The wall will either be acrylic cut outs stuck to a white wall or a poster pasted to the wall - whichever works out cheapest will contact Hardy Signs but would guess at spending around £70 on that. A day trip to Amsterdam on 6th May on BMI baby costs £75.

Thinking about the design for the covers of the books I think they will need the negative space tear drop and also the name of the place visited. Will work up some ideas on that.

Now that I have all this information I feel that I can write the Statement of Intent that has been requested for 1st April.

Thoughts - 25th March 2010

It occurred to me that I need to keep my thoughts about doing my Final Major Project on the ND Photography course somewhere. I always have a notebook by my side and have in fact dedicated a whole notebook to the FMP, but I also thought I should record somewhere the processes I have gone through to achieve the final result. Obviously a lot of this will also appear in my 'sketchbook' but think a diary approach on my blog might also be useful.
To this end I have to do a bit of backtracking to catch up with myself. Although I am writing this on 2nd April I need to go back to 25th March as this is where the FMP started - also please note these entries will ramble and be random:

25th March 2010
Right it all starts here. Had a chat with Chris about the 30 ideas I have for FMP. I have been saving them up since May 2009 when I found out the format of our final project.
We talked though all 30 ideas. I put them into the following categories:
Yes/Possible:
Helvetica
Natural Born Killers
It's a mans world
Holes
Architecture
Star Gazing
Possible with reservations:
Seeing Red
Returning Soliders
Long term/Future project ideas:
Ageing Demographic
She plucked; she ate
Asylum
Holes
Scarecrows

From this 2 rose to the top of the pile that would be enjoyable and achievable in the 8 weeks for this project - these were Helvetica and Star Gazing.

Star Gazing:

How it has, once again, become a hot topic. We have celebrated 40 years since landing on the Moon and this week the UK has announced that is having a Space Agency (one of the last countries that are serious about space to open one). Professor Brian Cox is hot news at the moment presenting marvellous documentaries about the Solar System on BBC as well as being the main spokeperson for all events occurring at CERN. Visit Nottingham Contemporary Gallery to see the 'Star City' exhibit to see if this gives me ideas. I can tie in Rodchenko and Russian Iconography into this. Something I have always enjoyed - perhaps explore the history of the Constructivist movement. My thoughts at this stage would be to photograph The people, or The Machines they've invented, or The Results of their endeavours. How obsessed we are with reaching the stars and understanding our place within the Universe. Blue prints, key figures and their inventions. The photographic outcomes could be experimental / abstract or just stick to traditional photography.

Helvetica:

It's different, there is potential. Can cover the history of design and cover constructivism, Bauhaus, modernists. Helvetica documentary celebrating 50 years - this will be a huge source of information, inspiration and pointers for research. I want to go to Amsterdam - Experimental Jetset are based there and would love to talk to the designers there. I will need to record heveltica at home but it would also be nice to see it used in another language. I enjoyed creating the books for a previous assignment and also for myself and know I would take lots of images doing this. Each set of images would be put into a book. New York, London, Paris, Munich is a bit ambitious. I love the idea of the 4 books being the outcome of the project and the fun I could have with the design on the wall behind.

Talk

Chris gave us a talk about presentation, framing and exhibiting which was very useful. One image really struck a chord with me - rows and rows of books on individual shelves/brackets. My fingers started tingling - this is a good sign for me it is the same feeling I get when I go into a stationery shop and can see how I can use the items to organise my stuff! I know, weird I am.
We will each have 6' x 4' space to exhibit our final FMP piece.
I have decided it will be helvetica. I want to go to Amsterdam - they have lots of helvetica there - urban spaces are good places for helvetica.
I started singing 'Pop Musik' by M ... ... "New York, London, Paris, Munich everyone talk about pop musik" and started to get ideas on how my 6x4 space would work. I cannot afford New York, Paris and Munich - perhaps Moira, Burton and Ashby would suffice and as Amsterdam is in my head perhaps go there for a day trip. I can fly out and back in a day and it'll cost around £75 - sister would come with me too.
Started thinking about the space and using the words on acrylic stuck onto the wall. 1'x1' high letters from top to bottom each in helvetica, obviously. Or perhaps use the negative tear drop shape created in the lower case 'a' as imagery on the wall.

Also need to think about how or where to display/present a business card. I like the idea of people being able to take something away with them. Perhaps it needs new specially design cards to match what I am doing.

History of Design - progression of design of helvetica, other names, other styles.

What happened to helvetica when Macs/PCs developed; how did the changed from hot metal printing to digital affect its use.

BOOKS

Looking at the various merits of Jessops books and Blurb books. The only size that I think will work is the 10" x 8" softcover book - this is only available from Blurb. I will also want it to have a spine with information on it and this means each book will need to contain at least 80 pages.

Home Studio

Set up a home studio on my dining table one sunny Saturday morning. I needed to take photographs of cars, car accessories or car related items. I had these items to hand and enough light to create these images using my macro lens and Canon 5D:

Silver E Type jaguar on gold side of my reflector.

Silver E Type jaguar on silver side of the reflector at extremely low angle.

Silver E Type jaguar head on.

Not exactly a car accessory but love this.

Not exactly a car accessory again but I enjoyed the post production on this.

Guest Lecturer - Martin Parr

We were very lucky to have a visit from Martin Parr last week. Britain's leading comtemporary photographer finally gave me the validation I needed. No he didn't look at my portfolio and say "Yeah, great. Would you like to exhibit in my gallery". No, he stood there in front of us all and said "You can only become a good photographer if you are obsessed about photography".
Finally my speedy turn round of assignments, the presenting ideas the next day are given the validity they deserve. I may never become great, but now I hope that my obsession will at least lead to a career in a field I am obsessed with.
So next time a tutor says 'blimey Joanne don't you sleep?' then they know what answer they are going to get.
Bring it on.