Drawing for Print Block

Tiny swatches were essential at the beginning, as you started to apply your inspirations  on drawings.

Based on those swatches I did earlier, I developed them into larger scales and composed different elements together .     We drew these in black and white in order to transform the images to screen in later steps. Therefore, the contrast of black and white is very crucial indeed.

POP UP DESIGN REFERENCE

Objects:
              pumpkin, garlic, carrot, onion, mushrooms, sweet pepper, soybean, corn
Characteristics:
              natural, fresh, hopeful, newborn, round, plump, bright colour


     My pop up topic is basically based on crops. I like vegetables and fruits very much because when I look at them I can always get inspirations from the shape, colour, etc. I admit that I often go into raptures when someone suggests to visit the country or even farmers' market. The scene of piles of crops attracts me all the times. I personally like round shapes and curved line a lot, and obviously most of the shapes of crops are formed by curved lines. Though there are countless varieties which have particular shapes, each object is unique. The beautiful and interesting shapes make me have the impulse to draw and design. And the colours as well, it's easy to pick more than 10 warm colours just from a single pile of pumpkins, which comes out as a wonderful combination of colours.

     There are some photographs I found and shot about crops.

Rough Guide project development

This is the original picture that I shot from a whole pice of mosaic wall.

Cutting off the colourful parts

Surprise!! The shadow becomes the next page.

 

After finishing photocopying the chosen page, I added different combination of colours on each one. A hundred in all!

Final work!!

superhuman

        This collection of prothesis were made of metal and wood which look quite heavy and ponderous. The structure of the prothetic limbs are extremely simple and unscientific. Saddle- like part was designed to support the buttocks, and obviously it looks rather hard and uncomfortable. Moreover, there's unexpectedly no joint sections, especially the very important knee joint. Instead, tow pieces of iron or wood replace all the bones between buttocks and ankles. As for the feet that will show out after wearing pants, they were all made with a pair of nice shoes which makes the prothesis looks realistic.  
       these prothesis were designed and made for those poor children who were suffered from the disaster of abusing thalidomide. They were born with malformation of the limbs. In response to this tragic disaster, the UK government of that time decided to design and produce a series of prothesis in order to allow those children behave an be treated as normal people.
      In the video playing beside the collection, a girl with shorten arms and legs was struggling putting off a pair of prothetic legs. The first scene showed off how the prothesis worked. She walked slowly into a room on her prothesis. With extremely stiff movement, she looked rather like a robot that lack for lubricant. An even harder situation was that without the help of crutches she was still unable to walk! Then in the next 15 minutes, she continually straggled moving herself from the prothesis into a wheelchair. Again the crugches played an important part in the whole process, helping her turning almost every pieces. Compared with this, the prothesis was really useless.
     So people may wonder what was exact the purpose of making such a useless prothesis. First of all, there's no doubt that they were not made to recover those children's physical problem. This is quite clear from features mentioned above, like no structure of knee joint, simple and crude design, helplessness in walking, etc. Indeed , they had less connection in medical realms than in social terms. That brings us back to a social problem about disabled people. It's true that we've got sorts of equipments or policies in order to make their lives easier, but there are still lots of unfair treatments happen everyday. For instance, you can't find stairs accompanied with lift everywhere which means it's still impossible for disabilities to go out wherever they want.  Generally, when a programme is built, people only follow the principle rule of adding incline alongside the stairs as they treat disabilities well which is obviously unilateral. As Gleeson(2002) described"the 'thoughtless design' advocates share the enthusiasm of 'natural limits' proponents for environmental modifications to buildings, access routes and transport systems, as well as the provision of sophisticated adaptive technologies, though the two perspectives differ markedly on why these technologies are needed." Back to the debate of 'normal people', what exactly do we mean by 'normal'? It's frequently not the disabilities who want to be normal but the rest people, who suppose that they can help them back to be normal only by a few ostensible methods. Brisenden(1986) pointed out a view of treatment and mind, "in order to understand disability as an experience, as a lived thing, we need more than the medical 'fact'... the problem comes when hey determine not only the form treatment (if the treatment is appropriate), but also the form of life for the person who happens to be disabled." As the development of science, it is essential to make good use of new technology instead of producing "thoughtless technology". New technology should be used on serving disabilities rather than covering their defects nor pretending to be 'normal'.

Bibliography:
Brisenden, S.(1986) 'Independent living and the medical model of disability', Disability, Handicap and society 1,2 : 6-13

Butler, R & Parr, H, ed. 'Mind and body spaces geographies of illness, impairment and disability', London: The centre for learning and teaching in art and design. 2002

TED manifesto

1. it's designers' responsibility to make beauty and reveal the deeper side at the same time, therefore, I need to produce design that has impact to the society.

2. it's very crucial to keep environmental protection which is the final aim of all design in mind when I set out to create an object.

3.Although, it's always economy that affects the the environment and society, we can't be defeated by it but keep looking for the true worth of design.

4.We should aim to design and produce projects that carry massages and information. They should be the link of communication between consumers and designers.

5. Design is not a isolate process, it associates with the environment and society.

6.We have to design to minimize waste, for instance, recycling, reducing chemical impacts, reducing energy and water, etc.

7. As a designer, I should keep exploring cleaner and better technicals.

Rough Guide research

       After having a couple of introductions, we were given our first project of the whole course. The task was called Rough Guide, which required us to explore London from a view as a BA textile student. For students who were born in London or quite familiar with London this project may sounded less meaningful to them than to other international students like me. I regarded it as a good chance to explore places I had never visited. Although I haven't been in London for a long time, I have noticed that this is a city that full of  creativities and surprises. These have kept attracting me to hang out and look around, sometimes even without a destination. So, this project was just what I wanted.
We were divided into 5 groups and each group got their own places to visit.  My group chose an area called brick lane.  Before this project, I had not been there and had no idea about it at all. But it's got an interesting name indeed.
       To my surprise, brick lane is a place that consists of vintage shops and street arts. Walking down the street which was lined on either side by small shops, I got a feeling that I wasn't in London but somewhere else, because all the scenes around me were quite different form any illusions I had about London.
      It looked very greyish, as all the houses were built of dark colour bricks. Different from other busy streets, there were no glorious window displays but faded posters instead, which made the street look more monotonous. Of course, there were street arts and they were painted with bright colours. But somehow, it's like a contrast to me. The more colourful and complicated the painting was the more desolate the aura was. This feeling is perhaps caused by the thought that I always have relating to street arts. I consider them as a way that used by artists or young people to express their deep feelings against the world, basically negative feelings like anger, loneliness, unsatisfactory etc.  And artists paint them on walls definitely not only for decoration but want to speak out against the public.
       On the other  side, there are some benefits as well. Brick Lane is a place that is filled with freedom and creativity. One does not need to be wealthy or famous in order to host an exhibition in gallery, but simply draw in an open space. Thanks to the attitude towards art in London, all their works are considered as a special way of art and culture, and they are appreciated by citizens and countless tourists. Brick Lane provided a stage for pent up creativity.