Throughout the entirety of my Final Major Project, the aim of my final piece has been to inform and educate on the French riots and revolutions, as well as how the French attitude has been formed into a “Spirit of kicking off” when they’re upset due to this, and how it has effected the country.
I believe that I have succeeded in doing so to a decent extent, I have been able to inform without being too obvious about it and maybe even peak people’s interests into researching the subject further for themselves. My use of imagery and typography make the underlying themes clear in my work, which I feel is my strongest area. However, my use of colours could be improved because I believe it has let me down a little bit. I attempted to use it to point out the similarities between the riots/revolutions and I feel that the colours that I did use do not convey this message to a more evident extent.
The research that I have conducted has a large influence on the presentation of my work, I wear my artist’s influences on my sleeve and it can be both a good and bad thing but in this instance I believe that I was able to create a unique project whilst using my artist influences. But the only influence that I got from visiting the TATE gallery was to not allow my work to blend into its surroundings and become lost in the sea of other people’s work. Aside from this, my contextual research played a large part in how my work was designed – I always had the context of my project in mind when creating my final pieces so that I did not stray too far from the initial statement of intent. My previous studies on the French language and culture in High School had heavily inspired the theme for my Final Major Project. I reflected back to my High School days to further my idea generation – I’ve always had an interest in language that is why I used a lot of typography in my Final Major Project. My contextual research helped develop my FMP by helping me discover new ideas and themes to use in my project – it allowed me to discover “La beaute est dans la rue” and furthered the idea to use different slogans from each riot in my posters. But, my success was limited, I have conducted research on artists like Nicholas Felton which in the end had no impact on my FMP as I switched ideas from an info graphic/motion graphic to a series of posters instead.
I use a similar style of including hand-written typography with a positive and negative colour effect which magnifies the significance of the writing and the icon. I also include the typography inside the icon that I’ve used in a similar way to Victore, however I chose to keep the writing flowing throughout the whole piece as for me it seemed more natural to do so and fit the chaotic style of a riot better, as it is not contained.
My thumbnails and other modes of idea development aided massively in getting my ideas off the paper to the computer and helped to visualise the basic ideas in my head. Thumbnails helped to add complexities to my designs as they allowed more ideas to be thought of. By writing my ideas down it allowed me to concentrate on other, deeper elements.
My experiments with different typographical with different typographical techniques helped progress my work to newer stages and made my final work more unique and independent. Using my own marks and strokes allowed for a fresh, new perspective on how my design can potentially look. Although my use of ink-work was not the best, it made me realise that my charcoal work looked much better aesthetically and fit with my theme of riots and chaos as it looked erratic and hand made.
I decided on using Photoshop as a method of designing around week 6/7, this was due to a change in ideas after my tutorial. This allowed me to focus on techniques that I could use to create my piece. I decided on how I was going to display my work after my final designs were finished, I did this because my mind could race about how my work could be presented whilst I was designing and this took a lot of my concentration and focus away from allowing myself to be creative.
If I were to extend or re-work my piece I would organise myself better by making sure I was being thorough in my research and writing/blog posts, as well as making sure that I kept up with my schedule. A weakness in working in the manner of which that I did would be that I limited myself technically, creatively and I also constrained myself with time. I would try to have more outside-of-the-box thinking when creating my next project and try to be more creative in how the work is made and presented, I would do that by keeping up with my schedule and with my experience in this project I’ll know for next time not to choose a concept that is too restricting.
My initial statement of intent has always been to display France’s “Spirit of kicking off.” However, after my mid-project tutorial I had to adjust and change my entire project for the better. By creating a series of posters, my statement of intent had to adapt to portraying the emotions of the rioters as my main priority. I did this by using charcoal to create my own typography, showing the pure emotion through aggressive hand-made typography.
I believe that my work is successful due to the fact that it portrays a message whilst using underlying imagery to portray other themes. It links all 3 of these chosen riots through its techniques, imagery and use of typography. However, it is unsuccessful in the light that the three posts seem to be forced together rather than performing alongside one another naturally. I feel this way because the “Le monde ou rien” piece could potentially just be on its own due to how different it is compared to the other two.
The feedback that I have been given by my classmates has boosted my confidence; it allowed me to understand my own work from a third-person perspective of those who knew previously about the concept of my project and those who didn’t. Those who had no previous knowledge of my concept thought that it was propaganda or awareness posters, which is not that far off but still shows me that my initial statement of intent is not as clear to others as it is to me. The Hi-Vis jacket is the one when my classmates began to understand the concept, as they looked on for a longer period of time it became clearer what the message that I was trying to put across was.
Personally, I think that my final outcomes are well put together, I like the range of styles used whilst having similar themes and techniques being used – my problem with my final outcome is that my concept does not become clear to those without previous knowledge of the subject, however that is not always a bad thing. I also dislike that it is just a series of posters and not presented in a way that is more unique and creative.
Throughout this course I have learned important project management skills that I utilised in my Final Major Project. I used my schedule to organise myself and manage my time in and out of college, yet unfortunately my work outside of college began to slow down around week 5 when I was awaiting my tutorial, and overall I wish that I would have worked harder outside of college and not allowed myself to become distracted. Eventually I began to start spending extra time in college rather than at home, as there were less distractions and the professional mind-set of being in college allowed me to stay focussed on my work.
I tried my best to be as independent as I could possibly be throughout my project, but there were times when I needed the guidance and experience that my tutors could provide for me. I had a lot of negative feedback in my tutorial as I hadn’t produced enough work to a high enough standard, and it was just the scare that I needed to begin working harder and taking myself more seriously. It was a big learning curve for me and afterward I made sure to take their advice on board when writing my blog posts and producing my research. Their advice had a large impact on my Final Major Project. It allowed me to re-adjust my own stance as a student and prioritise my research where it needed to be, their advice allowed for me to improve my personal standards that I had set for myself and provided me with more creative ideas for my project.
To conclude, my final outcome used the raw emotion and textures of my hand-made typography created by charcoal, to convey the slogans used by the French riots, resembling their banners and graffiti. The 3 pieces came together well as they stand out from one another and are not just the same poster printed 3 times, they all symbolise a different situation. There are weaknesses to my work and my project management as my organisational and time management skills let me down, whilst they were improved throughout the year they still need improving if I want to produce a higher standard of work. The strengths in my work would be the individuality to each piece, whilst conveying similar messages, which I believe I did well. If I were to re-work any stage it would be my research stage. I would have preferred to research more artists as it would have allowed me to create a more profound, complex piece of work, potentially. As well as this, if I were to be allocated an extra 10 weeks, I would research more artists, perhaps even take inspiration from Giorgia Lupi and create postcards of my own work – I would like to attempt a more unique mode of displaying my work, rather than simply have it framed. I could have it displayed erratically, even larger and painted or stuck to the wall – replicating the graffiti created in these riots.
L'esprit du coup d'envoi. 