Finished Drawing Sourcebook

Here is the finished Drawing Sourcebook:

Drawing week

This week we have been exploring our project areas through drawing. Over the week, we've made fifty sheets of drawing each, pushing our project! The next task is to select and edit the most important, and bring them together in a printed, finished 'Drawing Sourcebook'.

Finished briefing document

Here is the finished document that I was working on last week:

The Bigger Picture Festival

This morning I went along to a festival, in the Bargehouse (next to OXO tower). It was brilliant and inspiring, I wish I could have stayed all day! I managed to see a couple of interesting talks, and took part in a bread-making workshop. I met some really interesting people, including someone from a charity called Sustain, who are campaigning for better labelling on bread. I hope that NEF run another of these days soon, it was inspiring.

Controversies / Briefing Document

Since Monday this week we have been exploring a chosen controversy. On Monday, we analysed and discussed newspapers to find an issue that we were interested in. We spent Tuesday and Wednesday researching this issue further. On Thursday we presented a map of the issue. Since then, we have been working on a briefing document, to guide our final project. This is due on Monday.

The controversy that I originally chose was 'food additives'. This was because I read a quote that caught my attention.

"When the market researchers discovered that the public likes it's egg yolks a deep yellow, the chickens were fed the appropriate quantity of E102 (tartrazine) or E110 (sunset yellow), both of which are synthetic azo dyes."
Food for Wealth or Health 1991, p46

One of the places I visited to explore this further was Freightliner's City Farm, which was a fantastic place! However I have widened the area for my briefing document, to 'Healthy and Ethical Eating'. The intention is to show this briefing document next to our final major project next year, at the graduation show.

Outcomes: Honest Apples

I made a series of four Letraset British Cox apples, each with a different statement on, to tackle the way we know little about how our food is produced.

Outcomes: Intervention

The outcome that I presented for this project on 16th October consisted of images recording my interventions, and responses to these interventions. The aim of my project was to find out what local people wanted this derelict building to be used for.

Honest Apples

Today I developed ways of putting labels onto Cox apples, as a form of honest packaging. I tried lots of different options - pictured above are rice paper and food colouring ideas. However, I finally decided that Letraset works best. Although it is time consuming (2.5hrs per apple!), and I can't choose from a wide range of fonts, it is the neatest and most permanent option. I made a prototype apple today, photographed it, and planted it in the apples section of my local Sainsburys! There is a web address on the apple for a blog I made for this project - link to Honest Apples blog here. The site invites those who have found such an apple to leave a comment about it. I hope someone finds the apple before the Sainsbury's staff do!

Interventions

Yesterday I spent some time planning out final outcomes for both projects. This morning, I made a number of different interventions and put them into position around the site on Essex Road. The two above were removed by contractors working at the site, who told me I couldn't put them there!
The image above shows (L-R) an intervention in the window of a newsagent (£2 a week), an intervention stuck to a pedestrian crossing (asking people to stick their gum onto it to vote), and an intervention postcard stuck to a bus-stop. I put up six of the smaller cards and 4 of the larger.Around six hours later, I came back to check my interventions. One of the pedestrian crossing posters had been removed, but two had also been voted on by people. And 21 people had voted with stickers on how they wanted the building used.In addition, I had put an old phone number of mine on all the posters, and on the smaller cards that I put up. At the time of writing, I've received texts from five different people, telling me what they want the space to be used for! I didn't expect my interventions to be so successful.

Postcards

For the intervention project, I made some postcard-type fliers. These have a photo of the building on the front, and a hand-painted message, a stamp and my address on the back. I gave some of these cards out to people around the area yesterday, first asking if they recognised the building. The stamps were only second class - hopefully I will get a few cards back eventually! On the card, I asked what the person would like to see this building used for, leaving a space for them to fill in their answer. Today, I designed some cards to put in the windows of newsagents, and to stick up around the area. I'm a bit stuck with this project now - I think I need a tutorial!

Apple Packaging

Yesterday I was throwing away some tights, and I thought that these might be an alternative to the plastic bags available in supermarkets, for loose fruit and veg? They are stretchy and can be knotted to whatever size you need, could contain any number of different fruit or veg, can be washed, and you would be re-using something instead of throwing it away. I also started to design an in-store graphic for Sainsbury's Cox Apples. Today, I spent some time drawing a Cox apple, and this led me to think about using labels as 'packaging' for apples. There would be one key piece of information on each label, and lots of different labels. It seems dishonest to 'hide' apples in a bag. However the labels look messy when they are applied to the curved surface of the apple. A solution to this might be to use rice paper, or print onto the apple with edible ink.

Cox's Apples - Sainsburys

I had planned to re-design this packaging using photoshop today - as an experiment. But the amount of information that I want to put on the bag is so huge, I think I need to focus on a few key statements first. Perhaps it's not possible to be completely honest - there is no need to sell Cox's apples with a small book! I also think I need to totally change the packaging - it doesn't look 'honest' at the moment. Should apples even be packaged?? Maybe I don't need to design packaging, I need to design some sort of in-store graphic?

Local people

As I'm trying not to use the web at all for the intervention project, I went to ask some locals in Essex Road today about the history of the old building. I asked one man who runs a record shop, who said he doesn't want it to be turned into a church or mosque. The man on the right runs a flower stand nearby, and says the building used to be a picture house, then a bingo hall. He thinks it's been empty for about two years. It's listed, but apparently there are plans to develop it into a community centre and shops. He remembers going there on a Saturday to see a movie, when he was a kid.

Design Your Own Environment

The second brief I've chosen is 'Design Your Own Environment'. The brief is to observe the environment within half a mile of your home, and create an intervention within it. I have to observe the environment, design, make and test my design in the environment. I'll need to record the intervention so I can show it in my presentation next Friday.
I want to do something about derelict buildings, as I find them fascinating. I've decided I'm not going to use the internet for this project at all. Yesterday I investigated a building that looks as if it was once a cinema, but is now boarded up and abandoned, near Essex Road station. I really like this building. Today I'm going to ask some people in shops around the area to see if they know anything about the history of the building. For my intervention I'd like to find out what people in the local community would like to see this place used for.

100% British Beef

The first brief I've chosen is '100% British Beef'. The brief is to research an existing product, and from the research obtained, redesign the product packaging so that it is completely honest.
I find this brief particularly interesting because food is a subject I feel strongly about, in particular the many additives in our food, and processes it goes through, that we know nothing of. I could research this subject forever! But I have a limited amount of time, so I just spent one morning on research. I'm going to start redesigning some food packaging today.

Post-it note day

Everyone had about 90 ideas on post-it notes, and on Monday we spent the day separating these ideas into categories. In groups, we wrote two briefs for each category of ideas. We voted on the best briefs. We ended up with 44 briefs, all written by people in the year - and had to choose two to work on until next friday - less than two weeks time.

Lighthouse Building, Kings Cross

I've wondered about this for ages - seems like a beautiful building in a great location, but why is it in such a state, and why has it been empty for 20 years? You would have thought by now that a building like this would have turned into flats.

small blog on the building here.

New train lines being built in London

Thameslink - by Borough Market there is a block of buildings that are boarded up and not in use. This is part of Thameslink's plans to improve London Bridge station after the 2012 Olympics. I'll be 27 before this is complete!

Crossrail - this is the reason that Tottenham Court Road Station has turned into a construction site. Quote from website "Crossrail will be a world-class, affordable railway, with high frequency, convenient and accessible services across the capital - connect the City, Canary Wharf, the West End and Heathrow Airport to commuter areas east and west of London."

East London Line - the reason it has been closed for 3 years - the extension project. Quote from website "By June 2010, the line will run from Dalston Junction in the north to New Cross, Crystal Palace and West Croydon in the south. By February 2011 we will have extended it to Highbury & Islington."

Alexandra Trust Dining Rooms

I've often gone past this building on the bus - I don't know what it is used for now, and I'm always curious about the name carved into the walls - 'Alexandra Trust Dining Rooms'.

I found an old article in the New York Times that mentions it - see it here.

On Flickr there is a whole lot of info next to an image of it - see it here.

First post

Started a new sketchbook today for the new year. The presentations that everyone in the year has been doing over the last few days have been brilliant. Really interesting to watch, and also have given me some ideas. The brief we were all given on Monday, '4860 plus', is something I'm going to work a bit more on today.

The brief is to come up with 90 points of inspiration, as possible starting points from which to generate our final year project. These will be written on 90 yellow post-it notes, for an exercise we'll do on Monday.