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FOOD EVENT + REFLECTION

During the first few weeks of introducing the brief for this assessment, I don’t think I’ve ever been so lost with what create. Having a brief that was so broad

in it’s potential was very freeing but also incredibly difficult. I feel as though I’m at a point, as a designer, where I have all of these ideas but not the finely tuned skills to accomplish them.

I became incredibly disheartened after my failed attempts at my initial idea, where I tried to play with the idea of abstract shapes and forms for a more surrealistic feel. I had a vision of a very strong idea but not the skills, however, Andy mentioned something to me which I believe was very important for me to hear as a young designer. By trying to emanate something similar a work i’d previously seen, I wasn’t particularly exploring my own creativity or, I suppose, pushing my limits as a designer. In a sense, I wasn’t really being true to my creative individuality, you could say.

The concept for my final concept came to me quite suddenly. Due to the emphasis on typography this semester, I’d become quite taken with the idea of manipulating and layering text for unconventional readability. Now that I see the final product, and think on how I struggled to come to it, I’m actually quite happy with what i’ve been able to come up with. The piece stays true to my aesthetic influences and allowed me to explore something more unconventional than a food-based recipe,. Furthermore, in the dark the phosphorescent text really stands out, I’ve never created something which is subtly interactive like this, which was enjoyable and something I’d like to explore in the future.

FINAL DESIGN - STATEMENT

My recipe, ‘How To Have An Existential Crisis’, explores a universal feeling and thought process that plagues the minds of humanity. Through my use of image and materials, I’ve emphasised the feelings of dread and helplessness, as well as tried to emanate the environmental factors, of an existential crisis.

The background image is Janet Leigh’s iconic shower-scene scream in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), which I felt was an accurate and visual representation of the mental anguish around questions like ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What am I doing here?’. Through use of Photoshop I’ve created a glitch-like effect to represent the scattered and confused mind.

The titular text specifically emphasises it’s key words ‘Existential Crisis’, paired with a psychadelic wave effect. The ‘How to...’ part of the text is outlined  as it’s secondary to the aforementioned text.

The glow in the dark overlaying recipe adds to the confusion of it all, the reader unsure of what to read or look at first. The recipe reflects common feelings and scenarios surrounding an existential crisis, while still having element of a traditional recipe, it reads:

WEEK 8 - CONSUMERISM

This week, Andy’s lecture heavily centred on food and consumerism. It was his understanding that food culture was heavily changed and influenced by the rise of the advertising industry. Given, these days, that food often acts as a status symbol on social media such as Instagram, he is undoubtedy correct that we have moved from a focus on nourishment and simply want to be seen eating aesthetically pleasing food from the latest popular restaurant.

Popular feminist artsist Barbra Kruger made her rightful appearance in the lecture with her infamous ‘I Shop, Therefore I Am’ piece. Which, among many of her works, has strong links to the status side of consumer culture. Duane Hanson’s, ‘Supermarket Shopper' (1970), makes a similar statement, by reflecting the excessive buying of junk food by a ‘slobbish’, overweight woman - an attempt to demonstrate the new common form of the consumer.

Mass production is reflected in Andreas Gursky’s ‘Chicken Workers’. A repetition-focused photograph demonstrating the sheer amount of food being packaged daily by the meat industry. Thomas Hirschhorn’s 2010 piece, ‘Too Too - Much Much’, reflects the sheer quantity of trash we throw away, by filling whole rooms with old, empty cans and trash. The works certainly reflect the research that, by 2020, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.

Gabriel Orozco’s ‘Asterisms’ is a gallery show which reflects the same subject matter and values. The artist collects trash from beaches and football fields, a commentary on what humans leave while passing through a space, and artfully arranges them by colour, shape or form within a gallery space.

MAKING THE FINAL

In order to make 25 copies of the poster, I discovered it was too expensive to pay for phosphorescent printing, and it is usually only printed on fabric, which I thought could have a negative impact on the result. Given that I now had the phosphorescent paint, I was given the idea in class to make a stencil on to transparent film which would give me consistent results over 25 copies. 

PHOSPHORESCENT PAINT

CLASS EXERCISE - RECIPE BOOK MOCK UP

Final Poster Mockup

PROTOTYPE 2

 POSTER REDESIGNS | COMM DESIGN ASSESSMENT

WEEK 7 - FOOD-BASED ARTISTS & EXPERIENCES

This week, Andy made an interesting statement which really stayed with me, that being: "design (is) a lens for societies desires”. Which is, more or less, the thinking behind many artists which were mentioned in the lecture.

Andy touched on the Futurists, specifically the ‘Cabaret del Diavolo’, which allowed the viewer - or person involved in the experience - a special pass into hell for a night. Essentially, it was a hell-inspired cabaret which centered around a meal.

Another experience-based work Andy showed us was Bompas & Parr’s short film ‘Man Vs Gut’. Which evoked feelings of discomfort by playing amplified sounds of the stomach and mouth whilst eating, with video footage of people eating accompanied it.

Damian Hirst’s ‘Pharmacy 2’, played on the consumerist nature of the pharmaceutical industry. An experience-based exhibition where the ‘pharmacy’ is set up in a restaurant-like fashion, wherein the food is merely pills. An interesting commentary on our society.

PHOSPHORESCENT PEN TRIAL | COMM DESIGN ASSESSMENT

UV PEN TRIAL | COMM DESIGN ASSESSMENT

Time to start experimenting!