Flickr
Multi-Disiplinary Design research
Week One
I thought I'd start of this blog by giving a general run down of my plans. I have included the actual report below that I gave for my original interview. This is by no means set in stone though as ideas can develop and change through the course of my research. This blog will also contain links clips and images from various things that I will be looking at, in short welcome to the mind of Gary Quinn.Introduction
Design is all around us in so many different ways, often going unnoticed by the vast majority of people. Time and effort is spent by designers crafting everyday objects into something special. This attention to detail is what design is all about really, it also helps give products a distinctive look and feel.
As a designer myself I have always been looking for ways to bring my designs, which are usually 2D and apply them to products that can be seen and touched. This would include t-shirts, large scale art, key-rings, posters, hats, belts, underwear and so on.
For my masters I would like to design and produce these products under my brand name of Greasy Fringe, with a view to selling them online and in some shops.
Research
I have seen examples of this line of work for many years; some really stand out for me. In some cases they just make straight forward products. A perfect example of this would be Designers Republic who design various pieces of work for there clients. They also have a shop section where they sell limited edition T-shirts, key rings, posters and other items.
Deadly Squire is two designers who in short make various patterns. These patterns are then applied to different objects ranging from clothes to skateboards.
Geoff McFetridge is a graphic artist and director in Los Angeles, he first came to my attention with the work he did on The Virgin Suicides, he is a multi-disciplinary designer. He has worked on packaging design for Gasbook 9, textiles for Marc Jacobs, sneaker design for Nike, stickers for the Dazed / Greenpeace campaign, a plethora of music videos and wallpaper design for French furniture company Ligne Roset. I have highlighted him however for his T-shirt design which I have included on this page.
Kevin Carney is another designer who has spread his design skills and applied them onto items. I'm highlighting him as he has taken 2d designs and applied them to canvass to create art that people can display on a large scale. His t-shirt range has seen him collaborate with other designers for limited edition runs. I like the idea of limited editions runs it creates a product that is more unique and in my opinion has a stronger selling point.
Another big part of this area is the design of labels and there placement on the actual product. Some items have very little indication of a brand or label, while others may be coved with it. I personally have always held the opinion that less is more, yet just looking around everyday I see this is not the case. People all have different tastes and styles but sometimes a product will blur everybody's boundaries of taste and become very successful.
I intend to record all my research into this area on a blog style website that I will construct. The research will be very visual and I believe that this will be the best way to showcase my findings. The main outcome will result in a display showcasing my findings and the development of my thoughts along the way.
Skills
I have been studying Interactive Multimedia Design for four years. This has giving me the ability to construct websites for various functions. This is an area that is also constantly changing and developing so I am always learning and researching new techniques.
As a designer I am constantly looking to learn new things and develop my skills. From experience I know that being around creative people can help to really push and develop ideas. I believe that the skills I will learn during this period will be beyond essential to me.
Outcomes
I believe that looking into this area of design will increase my overall skills as an actual designer. At present my portfolio of work is limited to just the internet; my main outcome will be having physical items added to my work. In return this will give a greater representation as to what I am about as a designer. My interests in design include such a broad range of things and I would like a portfolio to represent this.My research into this field will ultimately lead to me applying my design skills to various items as looked at previously. They will all come under my brand name Greasy Fringe and be developed by myself. I will consider all the various parts of each item also, for example the labels and tags that one may see on a T-shirt. I will also consider all the elements that make up an actual product from advertising to packaging.
Entrepreneurial Aspects
The items that I go on to developed will go under my personal brand of Greasy Fringe. My personal brand identity is something that I am always looking to develop. I will use this as my launch pad to distribute and ultimately sell the items. My website at the moment does not have the ability to purchase goods, but I plan to change this around. I have studied the requirements of building an online shop and I'm aware of the difficulties that I face. This is mainly security issues and setting up a banking account for trading.
Various items that carry the brand name will also go to raising my profile and the actual awareness of the brand. All this can have nothing but a positive affect on my profile.
The idea of being a designer who also dabs in various other things is highly appealing. I think that a designer can not afford to limit themselves to just one discipline. Creative thought should be encouraged and as a designer we should not be limited.
My Week One
Apart from building a new blog that you are reading now I have been looking at some interesting stuff online and staying up until the early hours reading magazines. While I appreciate many things that I look at, there is something about very clean minimalist design
An well known example of this line of thought could be Banksy, While he is probably more of an artist he has become somewhat of a graffiti, illusive styled street artist. The thing about all this is, in five years time is he going to reveal himself and continue his present work. Or will he do something completely different whilst still remaining the allusive person that he is? Banksy at has become very popular in the mainstream at the moment and by doing this has lost his original cool. This is down to books, posters clothes and extra exposure in various forms of media. Its hard to say if he wants this or not, it would all die away if he stopped doing what he does. It would be interesting to hear what he had to say about all of his new found fame.
I think that as a designer I will naturally develop into different styles based upon what I learn, my general mood and feelings and my general development in myself. I am always inspired by many different things but I don't know what is round the next corner.
So what have I been doing?
My week started with the purchase of a magazine called Grafik, I have bought a few of these before, however the cover of the current issue just jumped right out at me. This lead me on a wild chase through the internet looking at various different sites and images. My first reference point here is a restaurant called Flash. The brand identity for this place, in my opinion is very cool.
The reason I have talked about this place is its identity. The graphics identity, as pictured below, is simple yet affective. The colors allow the brand to literally jump out of the page or screen at you. The logo is a simple bang or flash styled graphic, matching the name perfectly. Obviously color can play a major part in how anything can look. My Greasy Fringe site is built around a simple CMYK color scheme. At the moment this suits me fine but I would like to develop it into something different. Color is something that has always interested me, even today I'm still fascinated by rainbows. Everybody seems to have there own favorite colors, possibly a reflection of our personalities, as color can say so much about so many different things. I'm wondering if I can find, or do some research into this myself, some definitions of color and personalities?
My main point of interest is using strong colors to grab attention. Flash is an obvious use of this, bright strong colors get the job done. However we cant use these for everything which would result in some kinda new neon rave look thing. This is something that I have looked at before in past research, hence why the Greasy Fringe site uses the CMYK color scheme.
Back to the idea of the flash popup restaurant, thinking about this there are many popup ideas that could be put into practice. I remember 2 years ago when I was living in Amsterdam I used to walk past a t-shirt shop that was open for a month. After a discussion with one of the workers I found out what it was all about. In short several students had grouped together and hired some shop space for a month. They then printed up a series of T-shirts that where based along the lines of their current work and sold them off at the shop.
Pop up culture
I decided to investigate into this idea of a pop up business and see what I found about it. My initial search showed up a report in the FT arts section by Becky Sunshine (What a cool second name) anyway's the report is dated January this year. The term Pop-up or guerrilla shops has been around for a while and was apparently started by Rei Kawakubo of fashion label Comme des Garçons.While reading through all this, the pop up trend seems to enable people to open something spanking new and almost secret. Its fresh and exciting, unknown, mysterious and very curious, the shop isn't a trend or bandwagon as it will be away before it has settled into any stereotype or comparison. I also seem to keep thinking about actual pop up books, I always loved them as a kid and they do still interest me, but is there something in this?
I had a search through the internet and found a few things on pop up art, one of which by Olof Bruce is pictured right. While looking through some of his work I went of in another direction. I had discussed with Chris earlier various things regarding the machines that are available to myself, especially the laser cutter. Chris and myself discussed this machine at detail, something I cant actually wait to see in action. After the conversation I continued looking through Olof's work and stumbled across the image below. It's a book cut to look like a gun, it was this image that sparked the idea "Its not really always about what you cut out, but what you cut actually cutting onto."
