Starting with a fresh perspective. It appears to be important for any artist or designer to have the confidence to challenge normal conventions and habitual mindsets by approaching problems and situations with an open mind. Creatives must have the courage to take risks, challenging the unknown by thinking up new/different ideas and not being too self conscious about how they might work out. I believe this principle is asking for us to produce a variety of ideas around our project. At this stage variety and diversity is more important than quality. Although there will be a substantial amount of research from the group around the project looking at the normal conventions of a magazine, it is up to us to put a twist on these conventions to create a unique, interesting magazine that will intrigue our target audience. I will need to approach this task without concentrating on 'the normal' expectations, but thinking of layouts and designs which I have never seen before that may prove of interest to the audience. There are several ways of visually displaying these ideas in my sketchbook, and this is something i need to investigate and improve on. It is useful to think about similes, analogies and metaphors when generating ideas by associating objects that seem dissimilar.
Yuko Shimizu (work above) is a Japanese designer, a perfect example of an artist who works with an open mind and uses the idea of similes, analogies and metaphors in her work. The above examples are very sexual, challenging the conventions of hidden nudity/sex and the boundaries on which this can be expressed. Yuko has used many phallic symbols in her work, mostly in the top piece, whereby the sea creatures are portrayed as the male sex organ. The work is quite shocking, yet inspiring in the way she is visually communicating a point of view. I am interested in using visual representations (similes/metaphors) in my work, and take great inspiration from this artist.
Principle 4: Developing Ideational Fluency
The key word in this for me is 'Fluency'. Being fluent with working your creative mind and generating ideas upon ideas. My brain works best when it's focused on the objective of a task and has gone deep into the mindset of creating ideas and developing on these ideas, constantly moving forward asking questions and giving a variety of answers. A general term of 'once you start, you can't stop'. Starting is always the hard/feared point in life; will you do well at it? what if you don't enjoy it? How will you approach it? The concept is like reading a book. There is an uncertainty about picking up a new book and beginning to read it. However after the first few pages your mind begins to 'connect' with the book, and you will begin to understand what's happening, and predict where it may be progressing. Once this barrier is broken, and you are confident with the situation, the brain is able to open up and be free to explore. In relation to the task of creating a magazine, once the first few ideas are out of your head and on paper, you are able to develop on these ideas. Bringing new thoughts to mind, releasing new space. A good way of doing this is to use tools such as classification, brainstorming and mind mapping.
Above is part of a double page spread mind map from my RVJ of ideas of possible subject themes for the magazine. On this page I have wrote and linked as many ideas that came to mind based around Birmingham. This page has given me a large base to work from, providing a broad spectrum of things to include in our magazine, and a direction towards the target audience. This was a good starting point to get ideas flowing, and decide in the group what we believe to be the best theme to base our magazine on. I find mind mapping to be a very productive method of keeping the brain working. It is also a very helpful way of making connections between subjects which didn't seem possible, or as clear before.
No comments:
Post a Comment