Chapter one

Since being back at uni I have read Otto Neurath’s ‘International Picture Language’, Ellen Lupton’s ‘Reading Isotope’ and some of Dario Gamboni’s ‘Potential Images’. The first two books are what I used to form the chapter 1 of my dissertation, with my new question “:) Is this a face/this is not a face”. I haven’t quite fully decided on how to word my title, I am stuck between the two options that I have just written above. I have found it rather difficult to balance my subject and dissertation work and feel that my dissertation has suffered slightly. I only managed to submit 1650 words for the first submission but that is my whole chapter one. I am enjoying working on this question a lot more than the question I was initially working on and I believe in what I am writing.

I have been finding the dissertation tutorials useful and I aim to attend every single one as I feel that you can never have too much support. Last session I had several questions such as: Do we need primary research? Can I have some more information on lit reviews? And which person do I write in? All of this was answered for me. My tutor also advised me on how to approach my lit review for Chapter 1 with the use of Ellen Lupton’s analysis on the Isotype. I feel quite please with what I have currently written and now feel ready to start chapter two, whilst waiting upon feedback. I do really need to get a move on with writing the dissertation now though! I’d like to submit all of the main chapters by the end of term..

After Effects Sign Up Tutorial

I really needed to learn how to use After Effects to improve my film for the Persuasion project so I attended a sign up tutorial. The programme itself is quite difficult as there are so many things that you can do on the programme and because of this I did occasionally get lost in the tutorial. Although I didn’t originally want to create a film for this project because I’m not experienced in this area whatsoever I’m quite glad I did, solely because I have learnt the basics of another programme that I can use in the future.

DigitalMe initial tutorials

I was incredibly pleased to find out that we had all been allocated tutorials to go over all of our work this year. I looked over my work beforehand and made notes to ensure that I was prepared and made use of my time wisely. I genuinely found this one of the most useful tutorials in all of my time in university. It really clarified everything that I needed to progress with and I felt confident to start making changes. I was a bit worried about getting all of my work finished to a high standard however I have allocated a week per project which should hopefully give me enough time.

(IMAGE TO COME)

Starting my dissertation

After writing my dissertation proposal form I got allocated a tutor and had my first tutorial. I researched my topic a little before so that I didn’t turn up absolutely clueless (which i’m very glad I did) and he recommended a few books to start researching. My first problem arose in trying to actually find these books. There were apparently no where to be found in the library so I had to request them to be brought in, this was a bit of a time waste as I wasn’t sure if i’d have them in time for easter! So in the meantime, after some looking I found pdf versions on the internet which I am so grateful for because the books weren’t ready by easter time and that would have been a big problem. This enabled me to begin my dissertation proposal..

Moving image

So after deciding, at this point slightly reluctantly, to create a moving image I sketched out some potential ideas that I could create with iStop motion.  They were still very loose ideas as for some reason I was struggling with visualising them working.

I started to make some progress in regards to putting together an animation and had more of an idea of where to start going with it.

After the tutorial I came away once again with some important things to consider, I really had to think about how this would get to the public and make enough of a difference, whether it would be on a social media site or somewhere else. Another thing that changed from the tutorial is that I’m no longer doing an animation, I’m going to try and improve my filming skills by creating a short film. I am pretty apprehensive about doing this because i’ve never really created a film but I was persuaded as now is the time to improve upon skills, whilst I have all of the resources around me in a learning environment.

Beyond Fiction – Slight turn around

So I found my last tutorial incredibly useful as I was slightly stuck with piecing my final ideas together. From talking things through I came to a much more fitting final outcome. I decided to not create a police file but to create more of an editorial piece as my collaged women were turning out to be too glamorous to create a gritty police file. I chose to put together some double page spreads with more of a ‘mocking magazine’ fashion police vibe. I felt a lot more relieved now that I had made this decision and then created my final collage woman to add to the other three..

Dissertation prep – library support lecture

Although I already knew some things about the library this lecture was quite useful on how to research for my dissertation. I now have a list of useful means of doing my research including summon, scholar, met flicks , databases etc as well as different resources in which to obtain the information for my essay.

I also have a tutorial with my newly allocated tutor tomorrow so I have had a little brainstorm which will also help me to instigate questions that I would like to ask my tutor. I have started to think about various ways of approaching my essay and key points that I could focus upon. I feel now that after the tutorial I should begin thinking more deeply about areas that I could talk about within my essay so that I can start to research more precisely.

Beyond Fiction – Character Building

So, as I only have a solid week left to complete my project I began to put my criminal characters together via collage. I cut up endless faces and parts of faces to try and piece the 4 (actually only 1 in the narrative) women together. At this point i am quite concerned about the time that I have left! I know what I what to do and the components that I want to include, however I feel that there are aspects to it that my brain currently can’t put together, therefore I am really looking forward to my individual tutorial tomorrow!! I still have one more face to construct however I’m not entirely sure if i’m happy at this stage with how they have turned out, I may have to do some tweaking after tomorrow’s tutorial..

As well as the final collage pieces I have started to gather more primary evidence, photos of the four criminals which are shown below (Currently I have only photographed 3):

                 

Alongside these images I will include some of the evidence that I very initially collected in our first task.. I am yet to decide how I am going to display this, whether I photograph it in a box, or on a pin-board or I actually set it all up on a pin board as if it were a real police case.

Constellation – Dissertation

As soon as I returned to Uni I booked a slot for a tutorial with Mahnaz Shah to work out a potential question for my dissertation prep form and to talk about feedback from my last essay. At the time of the tutorial I really had little idea on what I wanted to write my dissertation on but we talked through ideas and came to a possible question. I’m really glad that I attended a tutorial early on.

Following my tutorial I attended 2 lectures on dissertation. The first one was very general and gave me an overall idea of how this part of my degree would work, I found it fairly useful however as I had attended my tutorial early on I already knew quite a bit about what was said. The next lecture was a lot more in depth and a little more daunting. It covered a series of areas including how to approach research for the dissertation and talked about finding an angle, this I found very useful and it urged me to start researching books and journals asap!

My dissertation prep form had to be submitted by the 6th which I delivered on time. I decided to stick with what I had discussed in my tutorial as there was an option to change once talking it over with an allocated tutor. I have decided on a question about how a single designer can have such a huge influence on society, I feel content with this question at the moment however I feel that perhaps it may need to be a little more specific… But I will consider this further with my allocated tutor.