The Fandangoe Kid

The Fandangoe Kid. (2021) What is… authenticity  [Speech]. Chelsea College of arts. 4/ October

https://www.fandangoekid.com/

How to weave your story into your design practice

Tell stories visually

Wants to make stuff important and real

‘Take your broken heart and make it into art’

Advice: have a team you trust and know can work things out whatever happens

Creativity as catharsis

Public artwork that gathers voices – a conversation and dialogue 

Soho radio – mixtapes artists have used to get through life 

Beautiful losers documentary

I really enjoyed the talk from Fandangoe Kid, especially the fact that her work is primarily influenced by her personal story that touches on loss, grief and recovery, all of which are often taboo subjects, making those who are struggling with these things feel isolated and alone. Her work and process is positive, helping others and actively listening to those who she is representing and the audience she is aiming the work at. 

Annie was talking about how she has decided to take up or turn down jobs due to a gut feeling and whether that aligns with her values.

Recently I have been re evaluating my affiliation with advertising. Since I started thinking about graphic design as a career I was drawn to the world of advertising as my Dad worked as a copywriter for advertising companies so I was exposed to this as an avenue that graphic design could take me down. My following work experience was also in advertising. However, I’m not sure that commercial advertising is in line with my values. I believe that we shouldn’t put too much emphasis on material possessions or have a big desire to have more. Therefore, I am uncomfortable with the idea that I could be using design to persuade people to buy things that they don’t need.

Currently I am thinking that I could create animations for educational videos.

12 Points within a Pica

Book: Grid systems Josef Muller-Brockmann

The elements of typographic style Robert Bringhurst

Task for next week:

• Create 2 two page spreads
• Pick any size magazine 
• Could start by blocking out colour

I like when the words are combined with images

Sarah Borris (2021) ‘A Talk by Sarah Borris’ [Online Lecture]. Unit 5: Professional practice. Chelsea College of Arts. 7/ 10.

www.sarahboris.com @sarahboris_ldn

Book: Studio Culture – how different practices run their studio

Advice

• Be clear why you want a job.
• Good to prepare something custom for a specific job. 
• Everyone these days has good portfolios. So you always need to go the extra mile.
• When you work for a studio, you work under the studio’s name. Often you are not allowed to contact the clients from the previous studio. So you need to create your own outside network. 
• Build a network of friends, collaborators and clients.

Work

Write down words that define yourself and practice 

Question I asked

What things can we do while we are at university to prepare ourselves to work in the professional world?

Try to find out where you want to work, in house, studio, freelance, combination of disciplines marketing, art.

University is the beginning of something that can evolve. Never feel you are stuck in one thing. Never let someone tell you that you are not good at something. Don’t let anyone bring you down. What someone says does not define you.

Try to think about the business aspect. Set up on your own and think about fees and contract templates. You are better equipped

Fees and negotiating contracts. Get it out of the way straight away. 

Inspiration comes from everywhere 

(even the bins)

Sarah Borris (2021) ‘A Talk by Sarah Borris’ [Online Lecture]. Unit 5: Professional practice. Chelsea College of Arts. 7/ 10.

I can relate to Sarah Borris when she said ‘I’m shy but I like talking to people and meeting people.’ She gave the advice ‘You need to get out there.’ 

What do you want to do?

This brief challenges you to explore, orientate and define the direction of your own creative practice. This project is about you, your work and your interests

Ideas for far for the Folio:

• M (digital video) (print beautiful)
• City landscape 
• Illustrations from collaboration with Olga
• And references (William Morris)

Requirements for the portfolio:

• A4
• Clear and professional
• Template
• Consistent captions and title
• Framework that means you can be experimental. 
• 40 References – explore own practice and interests
• Delve deep into what you are interested in
• E.g. a designer, design studio or process I like

Create our own creative manifesto. Our very own design and guiding principles.

What are my principles?

GDC Chelsea Graduate – Mark O’Neill

Camberwell Graduate – Max Koehler – www.maxkoehler.com

Portfolio advice

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A PDF deck is often the first point of contact for your work

— Show the work the represents you.

— Show the area/s of practice you are interested in.

— Do not include work that does not interest you in order to add more pages

USEFUL TIPS

• Set up your master page in landscape orientation.
• Page size A4 or A3.
• Sketch out first or have an idea of your intended layout.
• Set up a grid to work with throughout for consistency.
• RGB colours for digital use.
• Include a cover page.
• Include a short paragraph / biography near the beginning.
• Include a contact page at the end.
• Do save your PDF down in acrobat so the file size is ideally 5—10mb.
• Ideally no more than 24 pages for a portfolio deck.
• Work should be supported by a title and a short caption.
• Attach your deck to your email.
• Do not assume that if you send a we transfer it will be downloaded.
• Be careful with hot links and embedded films.
• Check that none of your photography and images are pixelated.
• Make it easy for the person you are contacting, people are busy.
• Keep it simple, don’t over design your pages, let your work breathe

BRILLIANT RESOURCES

www.represent.uk.com/projects/the-ideal-candidate

www.scratchingthesurface.fm www.scratchingthesurface.fm/episodes

www.2×4.org www.2×4.org/about

www.anthonyburrill.com – Communication design through screen printing and letterpress

When asked “What does order mean to you?”

Josef Müller-Brockmann replied:

Order was always wishful thinking for me. For 60 years I have produced disorder in files, correspondence and books. In my work, however, I have always aspired to a distinct arrangement of typographic and pictorial elements, the clear identification of priorities. The formal organisation of the surface by means of the grid, a knowledge of the rules that govern legibility (line length, word and letter spacing and so on) and the meaningful use of colour are among the tools a designer must master in order to complete his or her task in a rational and economic matter.

Schwemer-Scheddin, Y. (Date unknown) Reputations: Josef Müller-Brockmann. Available at: http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/reputations-josef-muller-brockmann  (Accessed: 24/10/21). Interview First published in Eye no. 19 vol. 5, 1995

I like this quote as I find the humour in my relation to his experience of having ‘disordered files’ as I am naturally quite chaotic and as the quote ‘creative minds are rarely tidy’ sums up well. Yet in his work he uses grids and approaches his work in a methodical, organised way. 

Task: To create a zine. Your zine should consider a visual language and tone of voice that is appropriate to you and your practice.

Inspiration:

I was particularly drawn to this piece of work on Turrell’s website as I really like the method of collage of the black and white image with elements of colour and bold type. I used this visual language as a starting point for my zine.

It’s great to be back in the studio and to be surrounded by creativite people with great ideas! I was working on my first page of the zine, which I decided would be my name in a grid shape and I looked over and saw a classmate designing a keyhole on the first page of her zine, and I was very inspired by this as she thought outside of what a traditional zine would look like and decided to put her own spin on it. I was thinking how I could do something similar to her idea but not replicate it and I thought of an open and closed door. This became the structure for my zine as it is included elements of a house and the door on the back cover is the door of the house. 

I chose to choose an accent colour of blue throughout the zine as blue is the colour I most often wear and therefore which my friends associate with me. I also like the simplicity and effectiveness of using a minimal colour palette in design as it encourages more playfulness in other aspects of the design. 

On the first double page spread I have included some work from Unit 3 of 1st year where I researched William Morris and created some kinetic type inspired by his words and design. I drew his living room and thought it would be fitting to include here. Illustration is one thing that I enjoyed doing last year throughout the projects. 

Over lunch I was thinking about what I could fill my last blank pages with and thought that I could include other things in a house: stairs and a window.

The words on the stairs read ‘creativity and hard work’ which amongst having the right connections and luck, are the most important must-haves for being a good graphic designer. For me, I have to remember that having a creative mind isn’t enough to make it in the industry. Hard work and long hours and improving. 

In Class Feedback: While having a conversation in class Ansel told me that the design was a bit rigid. This makes sense as I have just started developing this style inspired in part by Swiss modernism amongst other things. I am in the process of developing my visual language and tone of work so this task was helpful to explore these themes.

He also suggested that I could create a floor plan out of type so that the person would have to literally read the room.

On the back of this feedback and also after having printed out my zine and made it up I added to and tweaked my design.

 

I illustrated the window, rather than having it very rigid, and then experimented by using the outline and solid window to create a pattern, which I placed behind the larger window.

On this page I decided to play with perspective and encorporate portrait and pattern. 

I wanted to ensure that similar visual elements were present on each page so that there would be continuity and to reduce the rigidity. I added the illustrative element onto the pages with the stairs to tie in the bold black and white graphic type with the softer illustration on the previous page.

This week I quickly designed a poster for a friend who ran for course rep. They wanted to include an image of a girl reading which I found and then added the words ‘rise up’ to add intrigue.

Guildhall Art Gallery

On Saturday I went to Guildhall Gallery with my friend. While I was waiting at bank tube station I saw this building that I really liked the architecture of. What interests me is the detail that was carved into the top of each pillar for decorative purposes as well as the patterned borders that decorate the writing.

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The museum had several interesting exhibitions, we looked at the Victorian paintings, modern art and the Roman.

I noted the graphic design that was used as part of the exhibition, such as the design of the copy about each section, which includes type choice, layout and a stylised illustration.

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I really liked the artwork by Mark Titchner (b.1973) entitled ‘Plenty and Progress’ made in 2012. It was made from polished stainless steel, fittings, acrylic spray paint and lacquer. The reflective quality of the material used adds something unique to the piece and the overlay of type is done in a really interesting way.

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I like the graphic quality of this painting called ‘Good form and Nice style’ 2003 by Joanna Price as it uses only one colour and has a great use of white space.

I particularly enjoyed the modern paintings as they capture moments in a different way to photographs. I was struck by seeing a painting from this time of something I see in everyday life as it subverts the norm of seeing paintings of old scenes. When walking around St Paul’s Cathedral after the museum we noted that we were where the painting was set, which I found very exciting!

Walking around I saw these large words dotted around the area, which spelt out a sentence. I think it’s a really good way to engage members of the public in art and design as I heard people around me saying all the words they saw and making a sentence out of it. I also like the physical aspect of the word (rather than being put in front of real life in photoshop).