CONTEXTUAL PRACTICE
19/11/19
The 15 ideas in 15 minutes didn't helped me as I had already a strong idea in mind and that distracted me a lot. On top of that I am also a pretty slow thinker, so sometimes it even takes me days to come out with new ideas as I keep questioning them. Differently, the pitch between peers was really useful. listening to the good suggestions of my group aided me to further develop my idea, modifying it a bit. The concept was clearly understood by everyone and all seemed quite interested by it. The post-it note exercise was really helpful to understand how an idea should be presented and if the concept behind it would actually catch people's attention. Probably mine didn't get so much attention because the mafia is not a topic that interests people in general, especially if you are not from Italy or related somehow to this country. But as it is not just an Italian issue, since it is spread all over the world. Maybe people need to feel involved to be curious towards my work. So, to make people feel linked to that I could start explaining that London is one of the main cities for mafias' affairs. I will give myself some time to think of how I could better involve non-Italian people on this theme. And to do that I will need to make researches about mafias in the UK.
DIGITAL OUTCOMES - Contextual practice
20/11/19
Our group's idea was to create a game app that showed how to make your own garden in order to help save bees. And all the notions learnt through the game could have been applied to create a real garden, so people could save the bees even in real life.
RESEARCH
The Italic Poster - Eivind Søreng Molvær
I like this poster in its simplicity and the fact that the edges of it follow the tilt of the italic font, subverting the classic perfectly rectangular shape. It gives it some character.
RESEARCH
No bread just meat - Happypets
I really like the roughness of this font and especially the pen strokes inside the white letters. I think this could be a starting point for a new logo. Will suggested me to look at Hammer Films posters and I found similarities with the fonts used in these horror films' posters.
Hammer film poster
Posters of Seddok - Film of Anton Giulio Majano
CONTEXTUAL PRACTICE
20/11/19
As form of communication graphic design affects advertising, therefore the consumption of goods; political promotions; and people's representation. It helps to simplify complicated concepts, so they can be understood easily by the public. And it has a big role in people's choices and awareness. For instance, more and more brands over the past few years decided to become eco-friendly, and the acknowledgment of this choice from the public helped people changing direction towards a more sustainable lifestyle mindset. Among the case studies I think that the Meltdown photography exhibition was really interesting as the authors used art cleverly, in order to attract the public's attention, to then shock them with recordings showing the receding of glaciers over time: "We are using art as a kind of seduction to draw people in, then shock them"- Simon Norfolk. I think that the way in which they addressed the issue is very effective as it put the visitor in front of shocking evidences that cannot be denied. And I find that especially with these sort of issues the only way to make them more "concrete" in people's lives is to show the proofs. A fact that impressed me was the one about jeans. Acknowledging that to make just a pair of jeans a huge amount of water get wasted really got me thinking about my everyday life choices and how much even buying used jeans or recycling them could positively affect our planet's resources. For what it concerns my work I believe that some of the facts that I will put on my cards could shock some people and maybe help them to be more aware about the issue, like in the Melting photography exhibition, but the least thing I want to do is scare them. So I will need to be very careful not to do so.
CONTEXTUAL PRACTICE
26/11/19
I would like to set my work as a board game. People will have a match of cards, they will pick a card from that match, read the fact written on the card and guess if the fact is true or false. They will find the answer on the back of the card along with an explanation and if they will be right they will move forward on the board, otherwise they will stay still. The facts will concern organised crime and its impact in the UK and I will also give useful tips to inform people on how to prevent and deal with such crimes. I went to the association's event, but the things they talked about did not applied to my project. I believe that the interview with the police officer was the most useful so far. Regarding the mock sale of my game everyone was pretty positive about it and they enjoyed trying it for the first time. It was a relief to know that the game actually worked and it didn't result too serious or alarming. This experience was even very useful to point out all the key elements that we need to incorporate into the presentation of our works. For instance, a positive energy, a clear and complete exposition (maybe including facts from researches), asking questions to draw people into the project, being comfortable with the interaction are all features that we all thought were essential for a good first impression.
RESEARCH
One Fine Day - James Joyce
I believe this is a great example of how to highlight text. He used a white bold font, highlighted it with a bright red colour to create contrast. And added a yellow background bright enough to attract attention. It works really well, especially because the text says literally what it is supposed to mean.
RESEARCH
Book Smarts - Anthony Burrill
Here the font is really simple and clear and more importance is given to the icon. I find these books quite useful and different from the preachy ones on life coaching. They are an unpretentiously good light reading.
RESEARCH
I have a sort of interest for broken signs and finding this one on the street I thought take it could relate to the project as the place was a bit dodgy. And I like the roughness of the busted up text.
RESEARCH
Most of the information that I've collected for the cards come from the latest presentation (2019) of the national strategic assessment of serious and organised crime of the National Crime Agency.
https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/what-is-fraud
Action fraud is one of the very helpful sites you could visit if you have any enquires on fraud and it's possible to report frauds to the site.
I also looked through this table of datas in incidents of crime in England and Wales from December 1981 to June 2019 from the Office for National Statistics:
List of crime connected vocabularies with definitions:
https://www.met.police.uk/sd/stats-and-data/met/crime-type-definitions/
CONTEXTUAL PRACTICE
21/11/19
I've contacted the association Libera (against mafias) and they answered giving me many suggestions on the topic and putting me in contact with exponents of the association here in London, which invited me to an event that will take place on Tuesday 26th. At this event they will discuss the involvement of mafia in the food and wine international production. Even if I will end up not using these information in my work I think that could be a great opportunity of enrichment on a personal level. Meanwhile, I am trying to set up an appointment with a police officer that worked in Scotland Yard to ask him some question about crime in London and in the UK. During the tutorial the tutorial some issues with my work emerged, such as the correlation between mafia and the UK and how much knowing about that influences people's everyday lives and the fact that could be a scary subject that people simply won't like to talk about. I am starting to doubt my idea even more, maybe it is more appropriate setting it up on crime in general, instead of mafias.
CONTEXTUAL PRACTICE
25/11/19
Today I had the interview with the police officer that is currently working in the Economic Crime department of the police of the City of London. It was extremely helpful to understand which type of crimes are mostly common in the UK and how I should correctly inform people on that. He also gave me some suggestions on which reliable sources I can look at for my researches and some examples that could help me with the facts I could write on the cards. I will try to set the game on the information as much as I can, without being too serious about it, to not scare or alarm people. I think I will need to be be very careful on how I will present it too.
CONTEXTUAL PRACTICE
28/11/19
I don't like the lay out of the board and the cards. It's confusing and it doesn't reflect the topic of the game, so I will do other versions of it. The same with the logo, I found it extremely boring and I've started using the references Will suggested me to make another version of it. So far I prefer the lay out of the new logo, it reminds me of finger prints which links somehow to the concept of the game. For the facts on the cards I've decided to make other 10 facts to add to the 30 facts that I already did. Because I fear that people won't have enough cards to finish the game as the steps to get to the end of the game are 10 and the maximum of pawns that I have are 4, so at least there should be 10 facts each, even though they can play however they want and use the same card at the same time for every player and guess as individual players to move forward in the game.
RESEARCH
Bandit-1$m - 123Klan
Andy Smith
I was interested in the use of different fonts and how they are related to the words. Taking as example the poster by Andy Smith: "warning" is big, bold and prominent. While "monster" has a more organic form which could be related to the hypothetical monster's skin.
RESEARCH
Monty Python animations - Terry Gilliam
I was inspired by this image of the stamp to make a logo for my board game, but it doesn't work well. I don't like it and I can definitely do better, something more original than that one.
RESEARCH
Link to "How to make cards (3 ways)" - James Ernest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0t6PBypahI
This video was very helpful to find an easy and simple way of making cards. To give them an almost professional looking finish.