Mail Art Workshop

Last Wednesday, to help us generate some more ideas for our mail art project, we had a workshop where we had different tasks to do throughout the day.

1. Stamps







2. Wrapping things up



3. America Cards





4.Bondage



5/6. Looking







7/8. Cutting/Sticking



9.Stickers

Pretty much run out by the time we got there.

10.Stamping







Overall a really good day experimenting and looking at various types of mail art - helping with ideas for our own project.

Only a postcode.

After visiting stanley gibbons last week our group had another ideas session but although we came up with some more ideas it was nothing we were really overly happy with. So we decided to go abd buy 100 stamps and just to try out sending some stuff in the post. Some of the things we had spoken about.



I really liked the idea of seeing how little information you can give to the postman with the letter still getting there so i decided to send postcards out with a photo of the house form google maps on one side and just the postcode on the back. I like the idea that I can only see the outside of the house and maybe get a snippet of what is inside. So I asked the people to photograph the card they received somewhere interesting inside of their house.

I also really like the idea of the recipient using the thing they are sent ; so it isn't something that could just be done over the internet.





While i was doing this miriam was sending breakable things in the post. She sent two eggs both of which were sadly squashed on their arrival.

Later on in the week our group decided to make a name for ourselves and create a blog and an email address so that people who are interested in taking part can email us their home address.

We called ourselves 'to whom it may concern' and set up the blog

towhomitmayconcernbox.blogspot.com

Today i handed out flyers in the covent garden area in stationary shops and art related shops while miriam headed to a few galleries.

Mail Art

Last week we were given a new brief: to create mail art that will create a network. You can use digital technology to help you but this must not be the sole method of communication. A very open brief.

We had to choose our own groups of three and four and I am with Miriam, Donald and Adam.
We started off this brief with a quick brainstorm and came up with a couple of vague ideas about people sending in barcodes that we could scan with an iphone to find the product and making a typeface using letters that people had edited.

But we felt we needed more inspiration so we headed to what claimed to be the largest stamp shop in the world; Stanley Gibbons.

















We then hopped across the road to another stamp shop. This time filled with half stamps and half doctor who memorabilia. The people who worked there were really friendly and got out some very expensive and rare stamps for us to look at. The man also introduced us to smilers; a sheet of stamps that you can create yourself.

Bad Type Day Out

One of the projects in the first term was focused around bad typography. Throughout the class we were given various bad fonts which we were going to build out of wood and then take on a day out. This is a documentation of the day.

It started in the studious where we were given all the letters to play with and then photos were taken. Miriam, Rachel and I decided to try and stuff as many of the letters inside our clothes as possible.

There was a particularly angelic looking Jokerman 'O' which we then hung from the ceiling to look like a halo.

Here is the final shot.



We then took our letters altogether outside of college we went to the Tate Britain where we interacted with some of the pieces, hung them on scaffolding and finally placed them on the steps of an old church just before it began to pour down with torrential rain. Overral it was a good day out even if it was brought to a rather abrupt end!

Zapf Dingbats and Whitney Brothers at the BFI

Our first brief of the term was an animation. But no ordinary animation; we had to create our animation using only the symbols from Zapf Dingbats. We were allowed to make many of them change their size and colour but not alter the shape of them. The animation had to be between 10 and 20 seconds long and we had a session of about 3 hours in which to shoot everything.



After finding out our new brief I saw there was a night on at the BFI looking at the whitney brothers, who were pioneers in the field of computer graphics. I was shocked at just how early their motion graphics were and they had a retro quality about them which wouldn't look out of place in any of todays bars or clubs.

Inspired by the era they were made in, some were very psychedelic and almost hypnotisin, last for several minutes.

A Fat Cat Band Merchandise Stand

For our shrine dedicated to fat cats and live music sophia an I decided to create a merchandise stall for a band of fat cats.

It was important for us that our photo had atmosphere; we had to find a venue that could look like a live music event was happening and also include people and movement as if a gig were taking place.

We got tipped off about this bar in old street called Road Trip which held live music events and also had a really interesting looking bar and many pieces of music memorabilia throughout.

So we set up our stand at the bar and because we had to work with the space it was quite difficult; especially hanging posters from light rails getting them to the right height.

In order to create movent, we took slow shutter speed shots of Sophia walking past which also created a dark sillhouettte which we liked. However, we found it difficult to create the idea of a crowded environment without blocking the shrine and so to draw extra attention to it darkened the corners of the image.

In retrospect it would have been nice to try another version of the image landscape, if there had been no dimension restrictions, to include far more people milling about near the shrine.

Two manifestos

So i have finally got around to posting some of last term's work.

The brief: to create two pieces of typography; one will be an interpretation of a manifesto issued between 1880 and 1930. The other is your own manifesto which should reflect the technological and cultural changes that beckon in the 21st century.

I decided to do an interpretation of Adolf Loos' Ornament and Crime manifesto. Although I do not necessarily agree with everything he states it was so interesting to learn about the views he held during the victorian era. In a time when architecture and the fashion was to over ornament everything and everything was very indulgent he was way ahead of his time; stating that ornament is a crime and that the way forward in society is to abolish all form of ornament and strip everything back to basics. It paved the way for many art movements such as the bauhaus.





For my own manifesto I decided to write about speakers -the audio device. I realised that speakers surround me constantly throughout my day whether it be listening to music or instructions from a train guard. I wanted to write about how to utilise their capabilities effectively and just to have an appreciation for how they not only improve our entertainment but how they provide us with such a wealth of information as we would really be lost without them.

I made the text appear similar to sound waves to enhance the message.