OUGD603 - Design Publication briefing & initial ideas

Forever ago a few months back now, we had a visit from Ben at Ditto Press who presented us with a brief that I think a lot of us were confused about.

I never blogged it since I didn't think that my ideas were strong enough to pursue into an actual physical item, and if I'm honest I felt disinterested because I didn't understand. I think that it was such an open ended brief, it caught a lot of us off-guard, as we weren't used to working like that.

The brief was to simply present our 'methodology'  IE the way we go about producing work, but focussing more on research. I don't know whether it was because it was so early in our year, and as we are growing all the time, I didn't really identify myself as an independent researcher but more independent in how I went about producing.

So instead, I invented a fictional methodology, I called it 'One hour Internet', the idea that to research a project in a unique way, would lead to unique production outcomes. The One Hour Internet meant that the designer would limit themselves to only one hour of internet for initial researching of a given project, finding out initial facts like dates, locations, contacts, etc.
The final outcome of the One Hour Internet methodology publication would be a journal much like 'wreck this journal' and it would encourage or inspire the user to think of other ways of researching that didn't involve the internet.
Or it would be a giant poster or wall mural of a huge spider diagram, showing loads of alternative research ideas: 

The only way I felt like there was some sort of challenge to the project, was doing something that was out of my comfort zone - I spend nearly all my time researching on the computer! But this meant that my ideas were dry and purely decorative, and so the project went stale.

Until today.

The brief became a bit more open to just your research methodology - and not only what was being produced. The brief became a 'publication' about yourself, in any form you wanted it to take.

The Monday just gone, I paid a visit to a design studio local to me at my home in Warrington, Cheshire : Media and Digital. There, I got to see professional and everyday application of Augmented Reality, something I had been fascinated with for a very long time.

Over the course of the three years I have established a love for historical and contextual themes, particularly 1940s, 50s and 60s design, design for children and Theme Parks, themed spaces and experiential or interactive design. I saw this as an opportunity to show that.

My strengths lie in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop illustrations in these styles.

After my meeting at Media and Digital (MAD) they explained the basics needed for a successful augmented reality poster:

1. A jam packed 'trigger image' IE the printed image that the smartphone will have to scan to prompt the animation.
2. A decent length animation, whose first frame should match the trigger image, for a completely seamless transition.
3. Music

I decided that for the animation, I should animate a quote, 1960's title sequence style. Plenty of bright colours, child-like hanna barbera style illustrations to match and some cool 1960s jazzy music.

The quote I chose was from my biggest inspiration and closest idol, Walt Disney (again expressing my love for theme parks) "It's kind of fun to do the impossible".

Then from that, I decided, 'what's impossible?':

• Rocking Horse poo
• Hen's Teeth
• Flying Pigs

I feared that the whole thing would look a little weird, but hey, I am weird.

This outcome would basically 'tick all the boxes':

• It shows off my strengths and interests in digital illustration and contextual styles
• It exhibits my love for interactive and experiential design that could be used in themed spaces such as theme parks.
• It shows where (or who) I get my inspiration from (Walt Disney)

There would be a lot of work, as I have never done animation before!! But would it be enough as an experience to see the work that had gone into it??

Tonight I have sketched this image ready for the critique tomorrow with Tony Broomhead, I'm hoping my group can tell me I'm not crazy. Or that I am and it's OK!