Collections AND Containers.

After visiting the LEEDS Museum I have been thinking about collections and how they are contained, in more detail...

A container is:- 

Is this not the definition of a book in some ways? A book is used to hold whatever is 

placed inside it and then is easily transported places.

Initial Ideas I'd had would be to use the toilet roll cardboard as a container, to then intricately cut out my designs of objects most probably, then for them to stand inside the toilet roll, safely contained within the toilet roll cardboard they will be safe and portable.

Also, using the idea of book casing which can be made at Vernon street and presenting it as a draw from a museum, then to set my subject (content) in resin. This works in the same way easily transportable and collects information in a neat and easy/productive way.

Museums. Structure Idea.

Below is a link to:

http://www.clicknetherfield.com/access.asp

The site explains who they are and explains that they have over 50 years combined experience in the design, manufacture and installation of museum Showcases. The expertise within the company coupled with their unrivalled resources makes them and ideal partner for projects.

They recognised that museum projects required a showcase manufacturer with the design and manufacturing resources and capacity to service these projects.

This led to me linking my idea of resin and setting things, then how to actually present the resin objects? This led to my idea...

STRUCTURE IDEA ONE.

To actually try and put together a museum case draw with my objects held/presented inside. And with one of my ideas being to actually and with one of my ideas being to actually put together a 'make-shift' museum case draw, setting things/designs/a collection, in resin. I found this website very helpful and interesting. It describes  how the company assists museums in their own projects.

The Basis of a Museum Case Draw...

Ed Hutchins.

Ed HUTCHINS, creates small, unusual books using a vast array of inventive structures. Hutchins' is quoted as saying that to him a great book is achieved when every single part of the book - 

'...text, illustrations, paper, the type of printing, binding, covers...'

- comes together to deliver the message in a unified way. 

'It's when the parts are so interconnected, so supportive of eachother, that the sum of their collectiveness is greater than each individual contribution'.

The article I read on Ed Hutchins then goes on to talk about where the best place to start is, seeing as I have had trouble with already knowing my ideas for structure but not how to apply context or illustration to it, I found it very interesting.

Hutchins talks about how you can take a story and then ask yourself what is the best way to illustrate it. To then ask yourself what is the best way to print the illustrations and then to the idea of, having a structure and asking yourself - what story does this have to tell?

As Hutchins' belives,

'...The structure and design of a book, can play just as important a part, in manipulating readers through a narrative than text or illustrations...' 

Paper Craft and OR Fabrics.

Along with origami and paper craft within books and although the general approach to book making is paper. I have thought about fabric journals. The idea of using fabrics to communicate something, I think is a very good idea, especially if your subject is quite personal. The hand stitch and crafted approach brings you closer to your audience and it gives them something to look closely at, as well as something to touch...

Below is a page from a book I put together that was mostly made of fabrics, I mentioned it at the beginning of the project, about my childhood memories. I stitched into the text I had written and used the material in other ways...It gives work and a 'collection' a more personal feel.

 

Send & Receive Group Tutorial.

I found this really useful, in getting to grips with why I am 'myself' doing what I am doing for this brief and how it is what I need to do rather than something I have to do. But also a better understanding of how to approach finding texts and things to put in my presentation.

I was concerned about gathering texts to apply to my presentation and also whether they had to be very 'accademic' applying to design somehow, or whether I could concentrate on articles to do with the homeless as these will further my communication and understanding of my group.

For the time being I am searching for texts, but have been looking at some of THE NORTH magazine issues from the past and picking out articles from there and making notes, in order to understand better.

(The north Article.

From no.777 15-21 june 2009

HOMELESS IN BRITAIN SPECIAL).

- Samantha Allen - Bournemouths' Big Issue Distribution officer...

- Ralph Milward, 41, not an isolated incident.

  Millward had been a well-liked Big Issue vendor for over 8 years.

  'It raises questions about how vulnerable the vendors are'.

- Bournemouth Big Issue Foundation worker....

There's a cloud hanging over the place because vendors know they are vulnerable...these guys are dealing with verbal abuse daily, and yet the odd complaint about them can be blown out of proportion by the tabloids.'

- VULNERABILITY. They are people trying to do something good, and move on with their lives, trying to gain self confidence back - which they lose lots of through begging before they even begin to vend.

Serious attacks like Millward, knock this confidence even futher back, in a different way, but all the same negatively.

- A vendor speaks of how he has been attacked many times, even his sleeping bag being set on fire along with his bad taken along with personal items and 35 pounds.

He explains that people think they are vulnerable because they sell the big issue...and that because of this they have the right to victimise them. It makes him more determined to caryy on selling? Doesnt do this to everybody though.

- ONE THIRD of big issue vendors, have experienced physical violence selling the magazine and most put up with the insults and abuse.

- A friend of Milwards

has had abuse thrown at him and objects: ' We're not tramps - it's just that life throws you some bad cards sometimes'.

- On 30th June, West Cliff Baptist Church will be hosting a community Forum, which will consider homelessness and the plight of the vulnerable.

- 'Violence is present all the time if you're homeless...If somebody is selling the big issue, people know they are vulnderable, so ppl selling the magazine are very often victims of violence. You only need to take a walk round the city and you'll find one seller with black eyes. 

Progressed thoughts on content?

'Collecting' others Collections, looking at 'Collections' or am I the 'Collector'?

I began to panic really, as I seemed to have come up with my ideas in the wrong order, with my ideas of final pieces and structures, or what techniques I wanted to have within my work being my first thoughts, then panicking I wouldn't find a collection or subject to apply to it.

So I went back to the beginning and thought about 'collections', as I think originally, rather than developing my project from visual language or structure it would have been best started, gathering ideas of collections and then to develop the collection effectively and build on structure through a very clear understanding of my chosen collection.

Mock-Up Binds...

Today I have spent the morning finishing my 'Rounded Spine Book', I spent all day yesterday making and binding the book together with thread and glue also pounding it.

Here is my finished book...

Along with some notes taken in the workshop about the two books I made...

Rounded Spine Book - (Hardback), 4 papers to a section.

- fold them all in half

- cut teeny holes for needle, ''             ''       ''            ''  (this sort of distance).

- SEW, Kettle stitch on 3rd layer then there after.

- GLue down spine, let it dry, another layer. 

- POUND the spine to curve it.

- Stick on tape to strengthen the spine.

- Make cover, stick to inside pages and put in press with string to form embossed spine bit.

Here are some photos of my finished book...

The off-cuts were also pretty cute, and could possibly be used as a little typography book or story book, within visual language?

Notes Concertina/Pocketed/Origami Books:

- Height work out all measurements

- Mark off with ruler and needle

- 10cm ---> across and then score down

- Fold all the same way, INWARDS.

- Fold the corners IN and then OUT

- Fold all OUT again

- Then reverse the triangles from, /\ >>TO>> \/

- The book is finally halved then adding a cover.

(20cm high, scored 10cm apart, If you wanted to overlap, the height needs to be HIGH.

- Using a fine concertina for a spine. You can stitch a bit of concertina when you bind, it can make things stick easier.

Here is the one I made...

I thought these may come in useful as they have pockets which would be good for a stamp collection possibly? The fold kind of look like envelopes? These are initial thoughts seeing as I dont know what I am doing yet! 

Daniel ESSIG.

I was speaking to Sarah and she told me that I might be interested in Daniel Essig,who creates wooden-covered art books and book-based sculptures. Using a fourth-century binding style known as Ethiopian style Coptic, he creates mixed-media book structures that incorporate unusual woods, handmade paper, found objects, fossils, and mica. Below shows some of his work...

The idea of cut out design within books is something that I have a big interest in and hope to do some sort of cut out pop-out design for this project? It was something I was interested in doing for the Communication Technology brief but sadly time caught up with me and it didn't happen.

Cutting Out... Collage... Colours and Bit's and Bobs.

These are a few bit's that I tried to adapt looking at Clare Coles work and other paper and collage artists. I think with more time I could produce something much better and this is what I plan to do, but for now I like the fabrics and foil mixed. I wish I could have used more stitch, but with a broken sewing machine and tired hands I only got the chance to do tiny bit of stitch.

Cutting and over laying acetate that I had also worked well, giving the papers depth. I felt that after I had drawn on top and added stuff that they felt more personal, from feedback I got from others they felt this too.

Picking what colour foil I wanted for the mirror image was also a hard decision. Above is the Gold and below, the Platinum. It was important as I didnt want it to be too shiny and bright, but also not to dull, I wanted to see it was foils.

This is my design that didnt come out properly and you couldnt see, Im pleased that I did it on different coloured card, as I think that the colours complement each other beautifully.

This one doesnt work as well, but it still made a nice image.

Here are some prints of one of my wallpapers on different coloured paper...it gives it a different dynamic to the others that are on creamy paper. Its a shame that I couldn't get a long enough strip to do some of the others with a different coloured backgrounds.

Some print on my handmade paper, the texture and the way the paper rests makes the screenprinted image on top look very quitch and organic.

Visual Language?

When I start to think about this side of my projects, I feel confused, but for me I think this project is important in actually developing my visual language and understanding what it is. For me, I think that as much as my projects are about the communication of my ideas, It's also pivoted around me wanting to continue experimenting and finding myself as a designer - developing technique.

I have started to think about the Visual language side of things, 'How does meaning arise in visual language?' Semantics become very important, the major semantic theme of the book, will ask us how do visual elements and text work together to form/produce meaning? Will it even have the text to support it?

Typography, seems an obvious and easy place to begin, how the word is written and how it makes you feel? The size, bold, italics, and the Type itself can trigger feelings towards a written word. Things like this  may discussed in Christians Typography workshop?

Other ideas:

Colour, the meaning of it and how it triggers emotions within people. When people think of the colour red, they feel a certain emotion and when people smell a certain smell it can trigger how people think and feel in the same way, just as type does. 

Having one colour gradually easing into another...colour gradients could be a test of my visual language

Through collecting sounds, and then the audience making/developing their own visual picture I could try to visually communicate something. Would they understand it though? Or would I just want them to create an image themselves?

This then relates to how people think and what they think about when they think of a certain colour. 

Book Binding Techniques...

Through our time with Rodger and Sarah at Vernon Street, I have begun to think about the idea of 'binding' a book in more detail. Rodger explained binds and different ways of approaching the idea of a book:...

Some examples of things you can do:

- Full Section Bind, This opens flat, but the pagination has to be spot on for the images to look great.

- SWELL, Putting a book together with a rounded spine, this is the book we made as a mock and it just tends to look 'nicer' than the rectangular effect you normally get.

- Japanese Bind, most commonly used for photograph albums or possibly a book of collage? It looks as though the string-stitch on the outside of the spine is holding the book together.

  - Coptic binding, this is when there is no spine to the book, it's just stitched, the stitching revealed. Edges are trimmed really flush.

- Concertina, used in children's books a lot, by sticking extra tabs onto the bit of concertina you can make it bigger. With some folding you can also create pockets to hold things and bits of book that fold out, revealing stuff. Then there's also...

- Pop-Up Books.

They also talked about various corner cutters they had, these work in the same way as a hole punch? But cut the corners perfectly. Also machines which work in the same way but that crease bits of card you want.

Lastly Dust Jackets are quick and easy to make. Along with a casing for a book (box), they look very special. I was thinking of possibly making a big one to act as my museum case with my resin inside?

Below are just some images I have come across, of fun, intriguing hand-made books, incorporating some of the techniques above...

These are a couple of videos, of the Alice In Wonderland Pop-up book by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Rinehart, pretty spectacular! Amazing paper engineering!

Fabric Books, are also something i'm interested in very much, they have a very personal feel to them, which I think is important when trying to communicate something.