8. Mirrors | srorriM

"Our homes are mirrors of ourselves"

My 'home' in Park Road was my childhood home, and it's where my first father lived with my mother until I was 2 years old, then a divorce came into play. My father went back to live with his parents. My mother was then to become a single mother throughout a majority of my life.

Eventually my mother found a partner to whom she married, however again this ended up in a divorce and this time my 'home' was to no longer become my home. The house had to be sold and we had to move out, to which I lived with my nan also in Park Road whilst I carried on with my GCSE's.

Once my GCSE's were completed, I then endured a big move away from all my friends and family to Essex to live with my mother and her partner at the time. It hit me pretty hard and I suffered home sickness quite often within the first year of the move.

I lived in Essex for around 5 years, to which another split was on the cards between my mother and her partner at the time. There seems to be a circle appearing in which each time my mothers relationships fail, I end up moving with her to wherever she went next. I just went with it and didn't think to question at the time the occurrence of the same problem.

However this all changed, when she met her current partner to whom she lives with now. However there was a big problem, this move, if I chose to move, would mean I would be moving all the way up North.

I spoke up, and told my mother that I did not want to go with her this time, I think I got to a point where I was so fed up of following her around each time a failed relationship happened. It was 2 months after I turned 21, where I made the biggest decision of my life yet. I felt I was old enough and no longer naiive enough to not follow her around any more.

By this time, I had settled into Essex really well, I had new friends, a boyfriend, a career to pursue, college, and a driving test to pass. I was not prepared to give all of this up just to move with my mother all the way up North.

I was told 'please come with me, I need you there', to which my response was, 'I want to stay here in Essex, I have so much going here and I am not prepared to give up my boyfriend, college, new friends, and driving lessons just to please you'.

She was not to happy and I was questioning whether I made the right decision, for this would mean I would stay in Essex and be then split from my mother, to whom I have lived with all my life until this moment. I was already partly split from my friends and family from home.
Did I really want to be apart from my own mother as well?

I guess the answer was 'yes', this could be due to the fact that I had been with my boyfriend for 4 years as it was, I was very happy and settled to be with someone, and I was not prepared to sacrifice our relationship just to make my mother happy. I guess you could call it love, but I also did not want to be like my mother in that each time a relationship doesn't work out, I would move. I was not willing to sacrifice my happiness with my boyfriend and our already 4 year relationship just to move away. I was, and am still very much happily in love with my boyfriend and looking back, I think I made the right decision.

My mother moved up North to where she currently lives with her current partner there, she is the furthest away from all my family now. It's hard looking back at it all because we were such a close knit family and were always together, to now see how spread apart we all are as family.

When I have time and money I try to visit my nan, grandad and aunt back home, however it is harder for me to see my mother now with her being the furthest away from us all. It is hard as I grew up with her, seeing her everyday, knowing that she brought me up throughout my childhood, to now seeing her about twice a year.

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Looking back at Park Road I remembered having a dolls house which was stored in the spare room. I never got round to filling and completing the dolls house. It's almost ironic now, that the dolls house was never completed in the same sense like how I ended up moving house several times and starting with a blank canvas as 'home' again. Even more ironically I chose to give the dolls house away due to the fact I didn't have enough room at my nans house for it, which is where I would live next.

(pretty much the same model I had but the outside of mine had a brick pattern on)

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I've realised that from typing this all out that I have gone from being quite settled at Park Road, to enduring moves in between, to now being settled where I am now. The last move I want to go through regarding moving house will be with my partner into our own home. This then will become my 'home' just like Park Road was to me.

I was told that this would be an information/mapping project to which after brainstorming a few ideas on how to approach this project, the first thing that came to mind was to create a series of panoramic photos of the house I live in now, to show where I am at my current time in life. However I thought this was a bit boring and dead ended, as well as this, the idea has already been done before.

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So... I then moved onto something which I have recently gained a passion in doing which is infographics. I love the idea of displaying a vast amount of information into something clear and easy to understand, and thought that it would fit this brief quite well.

I then thought back to my life and the houses I have lived in, and examined my life in the sense of these moves. How they have made me who I am. How these moves have affected me. How these moves have made me a better person etc.

I then thought about the idea of a jigsaw...

A jigsaw is very much the visual representation of my life and homes, in regards to the house moves that have happened in my life. A jigsaw is made up of many parts (me, family, friends, houses, memories) and when put together create the final picture (reunion of the split parts).

I am looking into now creating a jigsaw using infographics in some way to represent the idea of my life being split into parts, which when come together create a fulfillness and a completed picture.


I may possibly create a small series of jigsaws that each relate back to my house moves.
Each of the jigsaws would have parts to move and make up the final image.

- a jigsaw representing my friends that are now separated from me.
- a jigsaw for my family that are separated from me.
- a jigsaw for the memories I have in each house I lived in.
- a jigsaw for the smells I have been separated from, from each house I previously lived in.


Series of puzzles like my idea:

There will then be one final jigsaw in the set that represents where I am in my life in regards to my home, people and surroundings.
I want to portray this though a jigsaw also, but I am thinking of super glueing the jigsaw peices together to reflect how my past house moves have made separations from me, and how my current home represents the things that are not away from me (future, career, boyfriend, friends).


I did not want to purely base this project on the objects that are from the different houses I have lived in, purely because during each move I have had to get rid of many personal posessions to fit into each new place I stayed in. I have slowly begun to build up my personal posessions however I don't think this was a route I needed to go down for this project.

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Another idea that just came into my head:


I am still unsure with the above idea, however if it does not go how I wish it to go, then I may look into how I can depict my old home at Park Road or all the houses I have lived in, through the means of an installation in which the viewer becomes the voyeur looking into my home or houses.

whether it be:
- through a film piece
- a book / catalogue

or

- a series of boxes that have a peep hole that represent different parts from either Park Road, or all the houses I have lived in so far.

These peep hole boxes could be the representations of specific rooms in each house or Park Road which have influenced who I am to this day.

By making a series of peep hole boxes would give the viewer a small insight into the places I have been in and the places which have influenced me as a person up until this present day.


For instance back at my nans house, my grandads old stamp room became my study where I clearly remember completing my graphic design GCSE project, which was the subject that gave me the confidence to further my study in the field of Graphic Design.

Each box could either have a small film playing inside somehow, or possibly an image that best represents each space I want to depict to my viewer.

I also like the idea of incorporating smell, lighting, sound or texture to to these boxes as well, I think the idea of texture could work well as I associate memories and places with textures as well as typical smells of places.
Like my grandads old stamp room where I studied for my GCSE's I could perhaps incorporate the texture of his leather work table which I studied at. This could be incorporated through covering the box with a leather material or book cloth for instance.
Or my current place of study in which my room has shelves and shelves of books on, perhaps I could cover another box with paper that would be used in a paperback book.



Quick prototype trying out my idea:

I then thought about extending this idea, rather than having just a peep hole, to incorporate the theme of a home more, and make the hole a key hole shape instead. This way the viewer sees what is inside the boxes / spaces to have a small insight into the spaces / homes I have occupied and which spaces have shaped me to where I am now.

Further inspiration for the possible idea I may choose:

For the boxes, if I chose to incorporate sound, I may have either a video playing with external headphones for the viewer to listen to. Or have an image inside with conversations that have been recorded playing in the background, in which the viewer can listen this way through external headphones perhaps.


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New idea:

I realised I have my first birthday on dvd and could possibly incorporate that by making an installation type peice, through having it projected onto a wall, and then there would be a series of boxes with peepholes that are placed along a wall. Each box would have a family member that featured in my first birthday video. By placing them into a box of thier own will reflect thier own space which they are now in, as I do not live or see many of the people featured in the video now. The boxes could be placed accordingly from the projection along a wall, the nearest box with a family member would be the person who is nearest me and is still alive. Then for instance then furthest box away from the projection would either be of a family member I am no longer in contact with or has passed away.

The idea is to show how the video reflects my first home and the atmosphere, people and goings on, to how everything in my life changed after that.

When I was 2 years old my father divorced my mother, then family members began to pass away, and throughout the years my life that was reflected as a close knit family in the video, has completely changed with the time of life.

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After all the faffing, I changed my mind once again, and have gone back to my original idea of creating infographics, only this time I will be applying them to posters in which will compare both my first home with my current place of residence.

I really like creating infographics and it is something I have really started to get into, so why push it aside, when I should push what I enjoy doing. I have also found it is the best solution in providing a better platform to display the information about the two houses I am comparing.

7. What is Graphic Design?

"Design is thinking made visual." - Saul Bass.

What is Graphic Design?

Above are photos of the pack and invites for the event.

'Soma' is Graphic Design in my eyes.


Soma stands for everything I believe Graphic Design to be:

•  Change lives potentially.
•  Exceedes your own potential through collaboration.
•  Not necessarily about something pretty, but more about producing something that is tangible and has a sense of purpose.

SOMA 

Soma is the result of my Semester B work produced in my other module: Professional Practice. The aim of the Professional Practice module was to hold a collaborative event/exhibition through a group collaboration. I worked alongside 2 other graphic designers who I had worked with on projects before: Natasha Tedstill and Uzma Faheem, as well as working with 3 photographers on this project: Katerina Makasis, Andrew Cooper, and Martyn Daujotas.

Between us we are better known as Aspire to Inspire.

https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/Aspire6?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/events/152045491625852/?fref=ts

We came up with the idea of producing an educational book to send out to a school in Morogoro in Tanzania (which will be happening on the 24th June). After researching the facts. we realised that schoolchildren in countries such as Africa, do not have a very fortunate outcome when it comes to education. English is the secondary language that is required to move into secondary school, however we found the percentage of school children that passed the basics of learning the English language were very very low.

We decided to try and help, we are only students but we aimed to try and inspire the likes of schoolchildren in Africa and Tanzania somehow. Therefore between the 6 of us, we produced an educational book that covered the basics of the English language and numeracy skills. From producing the book, we then decided to provide materials for the children such as an erasers, pencil, and colouring pencil which were then placed into small packs, making it easier to transport the books and materials together. Along with all of these, the packs also include a personal message card which can be written out by anyone who would like to sponsor the funding of making the books and packs. This would then hopefully inspire the children upon recieving the packs, to know that someone from the UK has helped give them thier own book.

Uzma has a friend who is part of an organisation called Raleigh International. The organisation hold a 12 week programme in which people from the organisation go out to countries like Tanzania to help out. During this time, around 3-4 weeks of this programme are spent with schools in areas such as Morogoro, therefore we decided to aim our project at sending out the book with Uzma's friend when she goes out to Tanzania in June.

The word SOMA means 'learn' in Swahili which is the language spoken in Tanzania.

Our main event was a market stall held on April 22nd at Spitalfields Market, not only were we lucky enough to get a free stall, but our intention for the event was to showcase our book Soma and get as many sponsorships and donations at the event as possible, to cover the costs of making the book and packs. The more money we can raise, the more book packs we can send out. We decided to make the project a non profit one, in that all the money raised, goes straight back into the production costs of making the book packs.

So far, we have gained over £220 in donations which is enough to cover the costs of making around 100 book packs already which is incredible, we have also been requested by many people to hold another event to showcase the book so that the people who missed our one day event, can make it to our next one. We have now also had requests to send 50 book packs to Kenya as well as Bangladesh. We gained some great contacts and links, as well as feedback and help, including help with transport links from the UK to Tanzania through a friend of Andrew's who came to the stall.

We have ultimately gained from the module, the ability to keep on producing an ongoing worldwide project. It has exceeded the potential of all 6 members of the group, and I am proud to be a part of Aspire to Inspire. We are going to continue with what we are doing after the module has ended, as we have just planted the seeds into something that can be potentially large worldwide.

I could go on and on about the project, but I will cut it short, by saying... this is graphic design for me.

A few event photos: 



5. Game ♠ Play

Instructions:

♠ Invent or reinvent a computer-free game or sport, for a minimum of 2 people.

♦ Played in the same room, area or space.

♥ Type of games to design: board, card, ball, dice.

♣ Work in groups / teams of 4.

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Previous experience in creating my own games which derived from the board game concept.

First year graphic design project at UEL (2011):

Board game project at college (2008)

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After choosing the group (consisting of myself, Destina, Lauren and Natasha), and brainstorming all the games we could think of to hand. We then decided as a group we were going to create a board game as we all enjoy playing them, and also have previous experience in either the making or designing of a board game before.

After we had a brief idea of using the theme of Alice in Wonderland, I did some rough sketches of ideas away from this theme that we could base a game around. By going off the initial theme of the game I wanted to show the group other paths we could go down in regards to an idea, than to just follow the main one through.

Below are the rough sketches of other potential game ideas:

• Guess Who (using willing students from both the Monday and Tuesday group).
• Top Trumps (using willing students from both the Monday and Tuesday group, that focusses on design abilities).
• Build a font styled game.

After putting these to the group, we all agreed to carry on with the Alice in Wonderland theme, and have fun making the game using the surrealist style that the film/book depicts. We decided we didn't want to make the game too serious, as when it comes down to it, games are meant to be played to have fun, so thats what we intend to do.

A few trailers from the many adaptations of the Lewis Carroll book:

My favourite adaptation, Hallmark's 1999 version featuring Gene Wilder:



 

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I then sketched a few ideas of how we could approach our idea using the theme:

The first idea was based on a product my work sells, which are wooden plaques. I had the idea of having the game being designed onto a block of wood to represent the element of the film in which Alice falls down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.

The next sketches were based on the board game idea we eventually decided we were going to finally use.

Natasha had the idea of combining the idea of croquet with the concept of a board game. At first I thought this idea was a bit surreal by combining an element from the film with the board game, its also an outdoor game, so to combine this with an indoor board game, had me somewhat confused at first. However I realised that the film/book are very surreal and therefore began sketches on how to incorporate the element of croquet with a board game concept.

I did question using this concept at first as I just didn't know how we were going to be able to incorporate it successfully into the game. The only idea I had was to create a separate croquet part, that worked alongside the board game.

We then each decided that for the end of the first week that we would design a board game each based on our ideas, to then show each other before Tuesday's lesson. We would then talk through our individual ideas and decide what the next steps in the approach to the project were going to be.

This is the rough design we were each going to work with for our individual designs, in which the rectangles would be replaced with playing cards, the circles replaced with rabbit holes, and the centre part will be where the croquet game will be played.

These are our individual designs we made for the board game, Laurens design:
 

Destina's design:

My design:

Being a big fan of Alice in Wonderland, made it slightly easy for me to design my initial concept. From my research after watching both the Disney and Tim Burton version I created my design. It has a cartoon style with a few twists like the Tim Burton film, these twists inclue the instruction cards and the scary looking rabbit holes.

My design from Natasha's sketch of having a swirl in the centre part to play croquet on:

We then decided we were going to take individual elements of everyones designs to then place into a newly designed board game idea.

The aim of the game is to get around the board first. The game can be played with 2-4 players, however 4 is a more ideal number. You then have to take it in turns to hit the ball through one of the wickets in the central part of the board, however you only get one chance each at a time.
Once the ball has been hit through one of the wickets, can they then continue to roll the die, whichever number is then rolled, will correspond to the amount of moves to take on the board.
If a player reaches a rabbit hole on the board, they must then miss a go and wait their next turn. The board has a range of plain playing cards, as well as a few with instructions to then follow to complete the game, this is to make the game more fun than to just have a plain boring design.


The components for the game include a die, as well as 4 flamingo-like mallets, like the film:

Counters for each player, which are handmade vials filled with coloured glitter, taking inspiration from the 'drink me' bottle scene from the film/book:

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The process of designing the final game:

The final board game sent to print before assembly:

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Lauren then made the instructions to go alongside the game:

As we didn't have enough time to make a fully furnished box as well, I decided to take it upon myself to make up a small prototype of how our box would be. The dimensions of the final game are 600mm x 600mm with a box that would be of 300mm x 600mm.

The prototype dimensions are:

Length: 142mm

Width: 73mm

Depth: 30mm

 

 

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Final model:

 

 

Back of the game:

 

The game being played by the group: