Visual Communication

I was looking forward to Vis. Com. week as Graphics would be one of the things I want to do as a job, but also study during my foundation course. The first lesson involved doing some creative writing on "A Day In The Life Of...", so I wrote about the time I went to Vondelpark, Amsterdam for my 18th birthday. I picked this moment because I can remember it really vividly and could recall all my senses which would be useful when it came to the creative writing. After this exercise, the whole class put their story in a box and we all picked someone else's story. From this story we chose certain words to create 5 sentences and choose 3 favourites. We were then taught how to stylise text and fonts. At first we used stencils, but then we created our own fonts. Some were based on the word itself or the general atmosphere created by the sentence.

(Picture of my three chosen sentences:"Small boats on a calm serene lake in Canada",
"Forest of pine trees swaying" and
"Small children laughing")

The next day we experimented with collage and different techniques of sticking different medias down. Things such as ripping or cutting a hole in a folded piece of paper to create a shape, using unconventional methods to attach materials to one another such as masking tape, staples or string.

   (Examples of the collages I created during this exercise and placing them in differentpositions to establish where they would look best)

(Asked to make a collage from a magazine)

At the end of the lesson we were asked to create three different collages relating to our three sentences and then integrating them onto an A1 sheet of white cartridge paper. I really enjoyed this activity, although being faced with the white paper was quite daunting at first. I ended up spreading out my collage such as representing the "noise" of the "laughing children" and the "trees swaying". I then made the page less busy as it leads to the "calm serene lake".

(The three collages I created are spread diagonally accross the
page from the top right to the bottom left of the page)

The next day we were told to photocopy our A1 sheet and the A4 sheets of text (from the first day) and use parts of it to create a triptych including the text and element previously used in the A1 sheet. I chose to carry on this theme of "noise" being carried through the piece and created it with red, yellow and orange felt-tip pen. I chose felt-tip pen because it's a very childish material and thought it would tie in well with the first sentence "Small children laughing". The scribble of felt-tip slowly fades throughout the triptych in a similar way to my A1 sheet. I created black and white photocopies of my large collage because I wanted to make the colour a focus point for the piece. For example, I coloured in the lips of the models' faces as I wanted to emphasise smiling/laughing. I also brought out the yellow block of colour as it's a happy colour and also links back to the happy children. I used purple and pink for the lake as they are soothing and calming colours and ties in well with the sentence "Small boats on a calm serene lake in Canada". The final outcome looked like this:

I really enjoyed  the Visual Communication week as it was exactly what I was expecting and that is, something I really enjoy. I would be very happy to go into this pathway but then again Moving Image & Photography fascinated me a lot as it was a new thing to me. So I am still undecided of which pathway I wish to go into.