This week from Monday 1st November to Wednesday 3rd November all years of Interior and Environmental Design were given the 'Bomb Project'. Rightly named so, as the tutors emailed us all on Thursday last week to inform us that on Friday we would be getting a new project brief that would run for three days the following week. So we have all been jumbled up into groups all containing people from each year of my course. Not only was this to get the studio bustling and active for open days, it was to get the years mingling and get the first years more acquainted with everyone.
At first I think everybody felt the same on Friday, dread and wondering what is the point to this? I know that I have quite a lot of project work on at the minute along with my dissertation development, so it felt a bit of a hindrance. However, it showers your head for 3 days and would always be another experience and article of work for my portfolio.
So the project brief is pretty complicated but in short, each group were given a specific topic and 2 thought evoking images. Following on from this it was up to us where we wanted to go with it as long as we produced a 2D or 3D outcome that occupied part of the studio area. Then on Wednesday the 3rd we would have a quick informal presentation of the final outcome and get some feedback from the tutors. The images we were given:
I was in Group 10, which consisted of 8 people and we were given the topic 'CARE'. On Friday afternoon we did a quick mind map of our instant thoughts of what this title meant to us. The obvious things where coming up like the elderly, cotton wool, first aid, plasters and so on. We then decided that for Monday (the official starting date for the project) we would gather images over the weekend that encompassed the meaning of 'Care'. These are the images I gathered:
As you can see I gathered a wide variety of images. Meeting up on Monday morning, a few people had not got any images but through a discussion with the images we had, it lead us on to thinking about the other end of the scale. We were thinking very obviously of the things we care for but then we asked ourselves "What about the things that we should take care off and don't?
We also had been thinking about visual communication and signage that give you warnings and cautions e.g signs helping you take care when driving. So we decided to try to combine the two. Was there a way in which we could gather a collection of items that we should take care with but don't and add a warning symbol to them, to make people pay more attention?
So Monday night we went home trying to think of these items and add the 'Warning' signage to them in which ever way we wanted. I decided to find some less obvious images, get them into photoshop and incorporate the warning sign in an interesting and realistic way. The images that I chose all have a variety of messages to convey, some more serious than others and some even with a double warning meaning e.g. the bottle of water. My images can be seen below:
After creating these I started to look at creating 'Warning Tags' that could be attached to other everyday objects that wouldn't necessarily be able to have the logo incorporated in or on it. I created a simple tag and attached it to everyday objects that we know we should 'take care' with but don't. For example, we know we should take care when using safety pins but how many times have you been using one and ended up pricking yourself?
Tuesday morning came and we collaborated chosen images from each person to create an evoking visual presentation. We also printed out the 'Warning' logo we had been using and created some stickers and tags. These were then attached to items around our studio area that we should all take care with but don't. This reinforcing our concept and adding a 3D level to our presentation.
