Koorosh NorooziIndependent Practice

This was the first project that I worked on right at the start of term in September. It was a relatively open brief with no real parameters and gave me the opportunity to describe my current interests and aspirations through whatever medium I liked.

I much prefer working to restrictions as I often don’t really know where to start on open briefs. I therefore set about finding restrictions and boundaries that I could work to.

Whenever I start a piece of work the first thing I do is create brainstorms and mind maps of any ideas, thoughts or inspirations that

come into my head. This enables me to choose the best idea and move ahead with it.

I really wanted this project to not only to tell a story of me and my interests, but also to show my design style at the same time.

Strong typography and simplicity is my style that I like to apply to my work and I wanted to create a project which demonstrated this.

A major source of inspiration for this project came from studentshowcase.net, a really useful blog showing other students work from around the world. I discovered it at the start of this project and continued to use it as a source throughout the semester.

the force brief

THINGS

ABOUT

ME

17 I WAS BORN IN LEWISHAMSOUTH-EAST LONDON

17I AMHALF IRANIANHALF ESSEX BOY

16

I AM ALMOST ALWAYS LATE FOR EVERYTHING

12I ENJOYEXPERIMENTING WITH DIFFERENT

PRINTING TECHNIQUES

13

I THINKTYPOGRAPHYIS THE KEY ELEMENT OF DESIGN

14I LIKESIMPLICITYIN GRAPHIC DESIGN

15

I LIKE PUTTING THINGS OFF

10I SOMETIMES STRUGGLE TO MOTIVATE MYSELF

11

I was very pleased with the outcomes for this brief. As I previosuly mentioned, I wanted to demonstrate my design style and skills in a way that informed people about me and my interests.

The layout, colour sheme and typeface was inspired from a project that I saw on the student showcase blog and I think works well in the context of things. The pale background offsets the typography well and compliments the large orange numbers. The designs are simple, clean and refined and as a result inform people about me in a clear and concise way.

They are simply a series of digital images and I chose this medium as

moving image is not something that use often and therefore I felt wasn’t a reflection of me and the way in which I work.

The content came from me just brainstorming things I like/dislike, personal things about me and just any general inspirations and interests.

the force brief

I LIKEROUTINE

2I CANREMEMBER THE MOST RANDOM THINGS

3I LIKE SWEETS

4I HATEEGGS

5

I LISTEN TO A LOT OF DRAKE

6I AM A BIT OF A GYM ADDICT

7I AM A BIGMAN UTD FAN BUT NOT A GLORY HUNTER

8I OFTEN DOUBT MY OWN ABILITY

9 I AIMTO BE SUCCESSFUL AND RICH

1

The Five Obstructions brief was a real challlenge for me as it took me out of my comfort zone in terms of having to use moving image.

Whilst The Force brief that I worked on a couple of weeks before was wide open and allowed me to set my own boundaries, this brief was much more suited to me in the sense that there were restrictions in place that I had to adhere to. Whilst I normally like working in this way more, the fact that the work had to be a piece of moving image was a challenge for me.

The piece had to

conform to rules set out in ‘Dogme 95,’ which actually helped me a little as it set me restrictions when filming.

I very much wanted to follow on from the theme from The Force brief but decided to focus more on the design aspect of me. I came up with the idea of filming lots of small clips showing things which represent the way in which I work.

Please find the link to the video above the top left-hand-side image.

the five obstructions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si4jplL1M60&context=C35c6c05ADOEgsToPDskLf110deIAqCwbQI7SOgI4y

For example, strong prominent typography is a theme of much of my work so I went around and filmed examples of strong typography. I like to work within restrictions and boundaries so I filmed barriers and fences to demonstrate this. I also like a sense of balance in my work so I filmed things such as people balancing.

I then montaged these short clips together and repeated some of

them in places to create my 3 minute piece. I repeated some clips as it was a way of showing the repetative design work that I have done in the past, particularly on a work placement over the summer.

At first this project was a little daunting and I wasn’t entirely sure how to approach it, but in fact it gave me the chance to experiment with moving image, something that I normally avoid. It was a good experience but made me realise that moving image wasn’t something that I wanted to explore further.

the five obstructions

After completing the two briefs at the begginning of the semester, and subsequently realising what I had known all along, moving image isn’t of interest to me, I had to formulate a path forward.

What I realised from reflecting on my previous work is that I need to make sure my body of work evidences my areas of interests. For example, I need to make sure my work contains lots of pieces of strong typography as there is no point just saying it and not having the evidence to support it.

I experimented last year with print along with information graphics,

branding and typography. I felt at this point my external positioning unit was a chance to demonstrate my skills in branding and information graphics, so therefore opted to explore print further.

I had enjoyed working with print last year, in particular printed typography, and has some real success with it which included selling some of my letterpress prints. The whole process of print is what I enjoy about it and not just the final outcome achieved.

I star ted brainstorming some ideas, phrases and themes that I could print. Many of these ideas were inspired by the ‘Reverting to Type’ exhibition that I visted earlier on in the year.

Reflection/ideas

Whilst print as a whole interests me, I find letterpress in particular, really rewarding. The process of typesetting, adjusting and experimenting over and over again to get the print that you require is something I find interesting.

At this stage of my independent work, I had identified print as my investigation but was very much at an experimental stage.

These prints feature a phrase which has a personal meaning to me.

I experimented with many things on the print including, as the print on the far left hand side shows, line spacing. This print contains far larger spaces between the words which, once printed, I realised didn’t

work so I adapted them to make them smaller. The whole physical process of removing the spacing and condensing it, is one of the things which makes letterpress so engaging for me. I think you learn a lot more about characters and letterforms by physically handling and typesetting them.

These prints were just a way of experimenting with what I can do with letterpress and I also created them with Handmade and Bound in mind and they were put up for sale.

letterpress

These letterpress prints came in the immediate weeks after the first letterpress prints that I did. They were just further experimentation into print, exploring typefaces, layouts, phrases and colours in the form of letterpress.

The content came from my brainstorms and mind maps that I created in the previous weeks, and

there was no real theme picked up across the prints. At this stage it was very much a collection of random letterpress prints with phrases that were either personal to me, or that I had picked up when researching.

Whilst researching phrases in the weeks before this, I came across I really useful website called Etsy which sold, amongst many other things, letterpress prints. It features a wide range of prints ranging in style, colour, layout, typefaces and content and became a useful tool for me.

letterpress

A major source of my inspiration when it comes to letterpress design has been Anthony Burrill. Both in terms of the content of the prints and the form of the print.

Burrill’s woodblock printed posters were something that I first discovered last year when I first started to use letterpress and are still a major part of my research and reference now and for this

project. His powerful phrases, strong typography and simplicity in his work emulates the work that I like to produce. There is a up-beat feeling and an element persuasiveness about his work that I am fond of.

This research enabled me to consider more carefully the kind of phrases that I use and also made me realise that I didn’t have to stick to just black and white prints. In fact the bright colours change the feeling of the print and can make it quite feel positive and cheerful.

Inspiration

I carried on experimenting with letterpress as I felt there was a lot of different things to try out still. I wanted to come away from the A3 poster format that I had been printing on and try making something for a different function.

These prints were very much influenced by the work of Anthony Burrill that I have previously showed. The tall, condensed typeface printed black onto brightly coloured card is

something that works really well.

Apart from aiming towards something for Handmade and Bound, I didn’t really have a direction for my prints, they were just a way of experimenting with a method of printing that I enjoy. However, looking back, I could use the ‘hello’ cards to send as a direct mail piece to agencies when applying for a job. A personal touch which could make all the difference.

letterpress

I wanted to continue my experimentation with print so moved onto some lino based print work. It’s something I have done in the past and the varied outcomes and results that it produces can be very interesting. Not to mention the fact that you can be free and inventive when carving it out.

Again, like letterpress, I find the process of creating the print is just

as rewarding as the final outcome.

For the content I picked up on an interest of mine, football, and in particular, Manchester United. I took a particular line from a song of theirs and printed it. It wasn’t a theme that I had used before for any other prints but had personal meaning to me.

Where my letterpress prints had been just black and white or red on white, this time I wanted to experiment more with colour. I got the idea to use brightly coloured papers from Anthony Burrill, who uses brightly coloured papers to great effect.

lino prints

The use of brightly coloured paper is something that I have experimented with and found that whilst it can be highly effective, it depends on the colour of the ink used. I tried using red ink on blue paper for example on a couple of prints and the contrast of colours doesn’t work. However, black ink on any of the coloured papers works much more effectively and conveys a stronger message.

These prints were around A5 in size and looking back I could have maybe experimented with size more and taken more consideration in the use

for these prints. For example, if I was going to use them in a book, think about exactly what size I would have required them, or whether they would have to be printed larger for a poster.

What this did do though at this point was enable me to try out different colours and inks, but at the same time it started to make me think that I needed a purpose for these prints, something to aim for.

lino prints

What I discovered after doing experimentation with letterpress and lino print was that whilst I created some interesting pieces of design and enjoyed the process, there wasn’t any kind of theme to my prints. I felt I needed to give my work an indentity.

In order for design to communicate to its audience and be successful, it essentially must have form, function and content. Having also reflected on my work from last year I realised that some of it didn’t these.

By drawing up this venn diagram I could identify the areas/gaps that were missing. I decided that I needed to concentrate on the content of my work more, and started to think about themes that I could use that would give my work an identity.

reflection

Form

Function

Content

Design

I decided to create a theme which I could use for my prints and came up with the idea of ‘pub talk,’ essentially anything I overheard in pubs.

I used a notebook to build up a range of quotes and general things that I heard in pubs. It was a vital tool to my investigation as it enabled me to discreetly jot down anything of interest, very easily and quickly.

I visited a few pubs and took notes of things I heard people saying, some were funny some were just a bit weird but it meant that I now had a theme that I could use for my prints.

Other themes that I came up with and got some phrases/quotes together were football chants, things overheard at football, chat-up lines and general funny quotes in other environments. However, I found that the funniest conversations can happen when people are drunk.

Having decided to pick up on a theme that could bring my work together, and built up a range of phrases and things overheard in pubs, I started to print these phrases out in the form of lino prints.

I had experimented with lino a couple of weeks before this but now I had a bit of direction and a theme for the prints. I hadn’t really thought about what I could do with the prints at this stage but I wanted to carry on developing the project to see what direction this would lead me.

In terms of the layout of the design, I have aligned everything to the

left and tried to keep the amount of words-per-line to a minimal, so that it reads easily. I used Univers as a typeface as I feel its a nice, clean typeface that is legible, even after being lino printed. Typography is an essential part of my practice so I think it is vital that the typography in all my work is strong and represents my personal style.

I was pleased with the way in which these prints turned out and there is some really nice texture in the background. However, looking back now the typeface should probably be larger so that is more prominent and makes a bigger impact.

lino prints

Continuing with my theme of ‘pub talk,’ I created these lino prints featuring a slightly stranger piece of text. It was direct quote I overheard and thought it would be quite funny as it just goes to show some of the random conversations and debates people have in pubs.

Again I was playing around with the layout and design and this time used a Rockwell typeface as I felt it reflected the typical British pub a bit more. The serifed typeface creates a slightly more traditional feel and relates to the British pub culture.

This print is more developed from the last ones as I have taken into account where the print might be displayed, its purpose. Even though at this point I wasn’t thinking about any major project but still building up experimental material.

lino prints

‘One for the road,’ is a pub-related phrase that is quite commonly known and is something that I genuinely overheard in a pub. I tried to stick to ‘traditional’ pubs as I felt the kind of conversation and phrases that I could pick up on would be more interesting.

For these prints I tried using different coloured inks on the same print, but with the background kept

a nice and simple white. I think this works as it helps to highlight a particular word or words that I might want to stand out more or have more emphasis on.

I feel the white backgrounds work far better then the coloured ones, as I feel it adds a simplicity to the design and doesn’t take any of the emphasis away from the characteristics of the prints.

I experimented with using a much smaller typeface in this print and reflecting on this I don’t think it works as well.

I started to think about a possible

project at this point and thought about things I could design to be used in pubs: beermats, posters, label designs, t-shirts.

I didn’t really know what the purpose of these designs would be though but I was starting to find a direction for my experiments.

lino prints

I continued with my experimentation of lino printing relating to my theme of ‘pub talk.’

This design was again slightly different in form and style as I just wanted to find out the most effective typefaces, colours, themes and layouts. For example, I gave these prints border around the

edge which I think work quite well if it was a square beermat design, but doesn’t work quite so well being rectangular.

I started thinking about how these prints would communicate to the target audience and I looked back to the Venn diagram I created earlier on in my investigation. Design needs form, function and content and I needed to make sure the form of my designs are legible and aesthetically right for my fmp.

lino prints

Whilst my independent work has very much been about print, digital design is a major part of my interest. So I thought I could incorporate this into my investigation by doing digital versions of the letterpress/lino prints that I have created.

This was just a small experiment that I looked at on the side after looking at some of my previous prints got me thinking about the variation between the digital and hand-printed designs. I was curious to see the differences when the designs were put together.

The digital templates are at the top and the lino and letterpress prints are

at the bottom. I think the difference between the letterpress one and digital one is not hugely different. However, when you compare the lino print to the digital version the differences are far greater.

I think this is because there is much more room for variation and error when cutting the lino by hand compared to the letterpress where the letters are already there and the only variation you get is in the texture and ink application.

digital vs hand

PRE-DRINKING

WELLNEVER ENDS

I SWEARI HAVEN’TWAXED MYCHEST

FEARED BY THEBLUESLOVED BY THEREDS

MAKEMINE ADOUBLE

LASTORDERSPEOPLE

ONEFOR THEROAD

The digital vs hand is a highly debatable topic and some people will always prefer the original handmade work over something digital but for me, I see the importance of both in my practice.

On one hand, the print is very much a one off in the sense that no two prints are identical, it is very original. I also feel that you can learn a lot from physically typesetting something with actual letterforms or from physically carving out a letterform.

Whereas, on the other hand, the digital version is very clean, precise

and measured and could easily be re-created. But this refinement is something that I like in my work and is important to me when creating pieces of design.

What this experimentation has enable me to recognise is that whilst print is something I want to continue into my FMP, I could still use an element of digital design to add a sense of refinement to my work.

digital vs hand

Having carried out much experimentation with print, exploring themes and techniques, I started narrowing down the path to a final major project.

As I previously mentioned, I was thinking about creating designs that could be used in pubs such beermats, t-shirts etc but didn’t have a purpose for them.

After some research and some brainstorming, I came up with the idea of creating work which supports the survival of British pubs.

I researched some more famous quotes on drinking in addition to some of the quotes that I had already acquired from my earlier research and brainstormed the best ones suitable for my theme. I think the shorter phrases work better especially if the design is going to be on something small like a beermat.

I then started thinking about the kind of pub I could approach. I looked into things like CAMRA who support the traditional British pub and ale and thought about the idea of doing a campaign with them. A traditional British pub would be a good client for my printed, hand-rendered style

of work.

I also researched pubs around London who brew their own Ale as I thought this could be a good way of finding smaller businesses with whom I could contact and possibly do a real project with at some stage. What I found from the research is that the number of microbreweries in the UK has actually increased in recent years and younger people are now drinking more homegrown ale. This was an important fact for my project as it meant I had to think more carefully about the exact age of the consumer I was targeting and how my designs might vary.

I found a place called ZeroDegrees which brews its own ales, but it is very modern and stylish and is branded to reflect this and as a result wouldn’t really suit the kind of project I’m looking to do. A much smaller, traditional pub is what I was looking for.

These are some basic visuals and drawings of mine featuring a few ideas for some of my beermat designs.

Research/ideas

Whilst considering my designs for the beermats and t-shirts, I collected a number of examples so that I could see the kind of designs which were already out there and also to give me inspiration.

I mainly looked at designs featuring a strong, prominent use of typography as my designs would be predominantly text-based.

There were some really interesting designs, including some featuring faded, print-style typography in a similar style to some of my earlier letterpress and lino prints. I think this kind of style works well on a beermat and would fit in with the style of work I am aiming to

produce for my FMP.

This research also got me thinking about something that I hadn’t experimented with too much before, colour schemes. I carried out some experiments with different coloured papers but after that my prints were mainly black and white. However, some of these examples use bright shades of colours for real impact. Equally though, some of the more natural shades of brown and green give an authentic feel.

Research

As well as beermats, I thought about possibly creating some t-shirt designs. I was trying to think of as many pub-related things as possible to design and the idea of a t-shirt I found quite intriguing.

I found some very basic and not very good examples of drink-related t-shirts but they still show the concept that I am going for.

My designs would be much more sophisticated and superior with the printed typography design on the front and possibly some other kind of slogan/message on the back.

I wasn’t entirely sure about where this was leading at this point. I had researched some local microbreweries and pubs that I could approach and I had the material and knew kind of design I was going for, it was just a case of formulating a way forward for a final major project. The possibility of a campaign in support of small British pubs or microbreweries was the path I was thinking though.

Research

Another source of my research was looking into typographers who produce hand printed work. Anthony Burrill was one designer who has given me much inspiration and Alan Kitching is another one.

Kitching’s letterpress work is extremely relevent to me and his unusual composition of letters and words made me consider how I might use spacing to different effects.

The fact that his designs works on all kinds of different scales, such as anything from large posters to postal

stamps, got me thinking about the size at which I am going to design for.

When designing a beermat for example, I started thinking about how best to use the space to give maximum impact. Kitching’s postal stamps are very small in size yet even from a distance are instantly recognisable and legible. This is in part due to the bright coloured typography on the white background and the careful shading on the letterforms.

These designs made me consider using plain white backgrounds for my designs but with brightly coloured typography to add more emphasis on the phrases.

Research

ONEFOR THE ROADONEFOR THE ROAD ROAD

ONEFORTHE

A drink a day keeps the shrink away...

Make mine a double...

These are some experiments with beermat designs. After doing my research and doing some drawings and visuals I created these digital mock-ups to see which aspects of the designs work best.

I never like going straight onto the computer and digitally creating something, instead I find it important to sit with a pen and paper and create some mock-ups. Many of these

designs I had already drawn by hand.

There is a variety in the design styles as I wasn’t really sure whether to create a classic design in the keeping with a traditional British pub, or whether to do a more contemporary design that would appeal to a slightly younger audience.

Originally I was going to create a classic design but after carrying some research into microbreweries, I found that more and more younger people are drinking ale and joining societies such as CAMRA and this made me think again about what style I should adopt.

EXPERIMENTATION - beermat designs

drink because you are

happy but never because you are miserable

Make mine a double...

Make mine a double...

ROADONEFOR

THE

These were just relatively quick mock-up ideas so that I could review them and choose a style to create a final mock-up with.

I think the simpler orange ones work best with the modern, condensed typeface as some of the other designs lack an element of simplicity and refinement. From my earlier experimenting with print, I also found the simpler design works better as the space around the words help to add emphasis on the phrase.

During my experimental stage of printing I thought that the larger typeface with less white space around

it worked better, but now reflecting on it, I think the space around the typography is more important. Especially in the small, square format of a beermat.

These designs were just part of the process leading up to a mock-up design of how my designs could look. They were useful as they helped me to identify which style of design to push ahead with.

EXPERIMENTATION - beermat designs

Here are some mock-ups I designed and created as part of my action research planning.

I created four different beermat designs relating to the ‘pub talk’ theme that I have been experimenting with and in the print style I have been focusing on.

I used a hand-printed style typeface just to show how the design could look, but all the designs would actually be all

hand-printed by me when it came to creating my final major project.

The design style and colour schemes is something I had researched and experimented with quite thoroughly beforehand and think they work well. They are eye-catching and interesting, but at the same time keep legibility.

The purpose for these would be to support traditional, smaller pubs or microbreweries whose trade might be struggling in today’s society. They are a fun and enjoyable way of encouraging people to drink without encouraging the need for ‘binge’ drinking.

mock-ups

In addition to creating beermat mock-ups, I designed some t-shirts that could also be used as part of the campaign.

They follow the same theme and design as the beermats but on a larger scale through a diffferent format.

Part of my earlier research saw me look at drink-related t-shirt designs and it gave me an idea to create some of my own. These are quite basic mock-ups but I just wanted to show the kind of thing I could produce with my ‘pub talk’ theme and how it could be developed.

The t-shirts could be sold with certain drinks, or given away as promotional

material but would be part of a number of different products, including the beermats. Other formats that I could possible design onto would be posters, banners, beer bottles or beer towels.

mock-ups

Make mine a double...

a drinka day keeps

the shrink

away

one for the road

i drink to make other

people more

interesting

Therefore from my research experimentation with different forms of print and also a small bit of digital typography, I was able to draw a number of conclusions.

Firstly, in terms of print vs digital, there are aspects of both that I like using and I like both outcomes for different reasons. In terms of my final major project I would like to use print at some point, but maybe combine it with some kind of digital technology. A one-off digital laser cutting piece for example, could be a way of making something more precise and with a high quality finish.

I think when it came to the print based work, particularly the lino prints, I found that simplicity works best for me. Simplicity is something that I find important across all aspects of my work and by keeping the designs relatively minimal, they

are more effective. Also, black or red on white paper communicates better then on multi-coloured paper.

Reflecting on all the experimentation with print I carried out, I actually prefer some of the letterpress work. Particularly the coloured cards I made, I think the bright colours work really well and I intend to print some more which I can use to send out to agencies that I apply to.

I think the letterpress prints work slightly better as the precision in letterforms is better and subsequently the finish is slightly more superior.

Creating a theme for my work has been highly successful. I came across a lot of funny, crazy and interesting ‘pub talk’ that I was able to use as content for my prints and give my work an identity. This is something that I have developed from last year where my work didn’t have a particular identity or re-occuring theme.

In terms of a final major project, I need to have a purpose for my

prints, a context, and I started to think about things such as beermats or possible a book or series of books. I started to look at local pubs or microbreweries who I could approach to do work for and have contacted a couple in the hope of doing some real-world work for them. I also looked at organisations such as CAMRA for example, which is a society devoted to real ale and real pubs and the survival of traditional British pubs and working with them is a possibility.

The beermat mock-ups and t-shirts I created show how my printed work could be applied to a project or campaign.

I still need to explore this idea a bit further in terms of content and purpose of the project, but I have a good idea of what direction I am heading in now.

I also like the idea of mixing my hand-printed typography work with some aspect of digital as this would be a way of adding a sense of refinement and finish to my work.

Evaluation/fmp proposal

Adamson, Glenn. (2007). Thinking Through Craft. Oxford: Berg.

Blush. (2011). http://www.blushpublishing.co.uk/ (Accessed October 2011).

Bringhurst, Robert. (2002). The Elements of Typographic Style. Vancouver: Hartley & Marks.

Burrill, Anthony. (2011). Recent Projects. http://www.anthonyburrill.com/ (Accessed September 2011).

CAMRA. (2011). http://www.camra.org.uk/ (Accessed October 2011).

Craig, James. (2006). Designing With Type. New York: Crown Publishing.

Etsy. (2011). Art - Letterpress. http://www.etsy.com/category/art/print/letterpress?page=2 (Accessed October 2011).

Harvey, Wilson: London. (2004). 1000 Graphic Elements. Massaachusetts: Rockport Publishers.

Kamen, Zoe. (2010). London’s Best Microbreweries. http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/features/10425/London-s_best_microbreweries.html (Accessed November 2011).

Showcase, Student. (2011). Queensland Suncare. http://www.studentshowcase.net/2011/09/29/queensland-suncare/ (Accessed September 2011).

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