ShortScale.org

I'm going to Uni in a month to do Graphic Design so I'm trying to get back into it, do a few pieces before i go. The only arty thing I have been doing recently is a big of photography.

I have NO ideas though. Without someone setting me a brief or something i cant think what to do. I will start something on Photoshop or by hand and it will get no where. 15 mins later I just close it without saving.

How can I get ideas? What do you when you have no ideas? Set yourself a design task maybe? I'm thinking maybe just design some band posters with fake line ups, just imaginary gigs. Argh.h.

Stuff we get the first years to do, and some suggestions:

- Redesign book covers (simultaneously boring and god fun, this one).
- Design packaging for an emotion.
- Make fanzines using InDesign and/or photocopiers.
- Use just layout and typography to accentuate a text - look at Concrete Poets for some inspiration.
- Brush up your typography. We love typographers.
- Read Ways of Seeing, some Barthes and a friendly history of art. Get used to theory, it's lovely.
- Develop those ideas you had of musical scores.

Cheers, they are some good ideas. I might try a small fanzine... that sounds fun. I also need to try InDesign, never used it before.

those are good ideas.

i sometimes just check out a text book at the library and go through excercies from those (for drawing, i suck at graphic arts)

DanHeron wrote:I also need to try InDesign, never used it before.

Piece of piss. PM me your email address and I'll bung you the worksheets I do for my students.

benecol wrote:

DanHeron wrote:I also need to try InDesign, never used it before.

Piece of piss. PM me your email address and I'll bung you the worksheets I do for my students.

I've had it for a while but mostly just used Photoshop or stuff by hand.

Cheers, I'll PM now.

DanHeron wrote:Cheers, they are some good ideas. I might try a small fanzine... that sounds fun. I also need to try InDesign, never used it before.

easy and fun mini fanzine thing that my friend made/I am making very soon: http://www.makingbooks.com/hotdog.shtml

Cool cool. I think I'm gonna just try and do a few pieces based on Manchester. A bit of a boring subject but it means i can get photos and info easy if i want.

A fanzine type thing...
THIS CITY.

my first project on my degree was a fanzine about leeds, i chose to do mine about the local music scene: bands/record shops/venues (both past and present) which is a pretty obvious choice for a zine. Some cool stuff other people did were Cats of LS6 (an area of leeds), Graffiti around the city, City 'secrets' (stuff like how there's a WW2 bunker under a huge park, how there's an old bear pit in another area, abandoned cinemas etc.) which was probably my favourite. Other people did things about the best bars in the city, good local tourist attractions etc.

benecol wrote:god fun

depends on the book, i suppose.

dan, you'll likely find that in a university environment you'll get ideas for stuff just from talking to other people, visiting the library, etc. your brain will likely move up a gear when it's being stimulated by stuff.

i'm trying to remember some of the briefs we were set at the start of the course but was so many dead brain cells ago. there was one where we were given a cd case and a colour and had to make something (anything you like) out of it... um... something else where we had to pick an adjective and a noun out of hats and do something based on that (QUIET and WASP, for example). i remember another, we had to fill a suitcase for a randomly picked occupation. mine was TV evangelist and involved making a fully functioning board game called 'strike me down'. that was good fun. or we'd get a square on a map at random and we had to do something with that. mine was a list of all the family estate cars in the square, made into a map which one extracted from the boot of a cardboard volvo i built.

(i'll add that i did illustration, not graphic design but the briefs through the first year were pretty closely related in the two departments. teaching you how to use the printing presses, typesetting, that kind of shizz)

stewart wrote:dan, you'll likely find that in a university environment you'll get ideas for stuff just from talking to other people, visiting the library, etc. your brain will likely move up a gear when it's being stimulated by stuff.

I've just finished my first year and this couldn't be more true. No doubt you'll find out about so many more designers/artists that you hadn't heard of before and just bouncing any old idea no matter how shitty they may seem off other people who are in the same situation usually creates something great. I found that just having discussions with a small group of people helped me with generating ideas more than anything else

Once I start Uni and get back into the routine of doing work I should be ok. It's just now, when I want to do stuff but don't HAVE to. I struggle to find the motivation to do it.

i think everyone's like that. i haven't done a shred of artwork for myself since graduating.

Dunno where this is going. On the theme of Manchester. The photo is cut into the shape of the runways at Manchester Airport. It needs some TYPE or something.

Instead of a zine i might do some infographics about Manchester. Here's a 10min SIMPLE idea:


Here's one (much more complicated..) i saw on flickr which i think looks amazing.

I got a Summer Project from uni in the post. I have to design/make 2 things to take in on the first day... An A5 postcard with my name a photo of me on it. Everyone's postcards will be put on the wall and can be used like an "analog facebook". and a Namebadge to wear on the first day. I started ideas today for the postcard using film photos I took:



The grass bit will fold out to this:



Then my face will be in there somewhere. I dunno. I don't really know how much info they want on it, looks a bit bare with just my name on it ha.

Fucking badges. I've not been able to move for fucking button badges from my students this last couple of years. It has meant, however, that just a little bit of theft has rendered me a complete legend with my kids when I tip up home with badges in my schoolbag for them.

DanHeron wrote:"analog facebook"

Hopefully they didn't actually use that phrase.

I've got a quid says they did.

... they did.




haha thats why i put in quotes, so people new it wasnt me who said it.