Patrick Thomas - Visiting Profesional

Graphic Designer/Artist Patrick Thomas came in to give a talk about his practise and some of his projects. Originating from Liverpool, Thomas studied Design at Central Saint Martins before heading over to work in Barcelona. He’s now a lecturer at a university in southern Germany. I found a lot of his projects really interesting, one thing I really noticed was the strong sense of function and meaning that each project had, everything he’s done has been for a reason. A great example of this was his ‘Protest Stencil Toolkit’ project. Stencils are inherently highly functional, and by using them as the content of the publication, Thomas gave people the means to communicate in however manner they wished, it’s almost collaborative. And while Thomas is an advocate for a lot of current social and environmental causes, he’s not passing them on to whoever buys the toolkit, he’s giving them the means to communicate these ideas if they so wish to. 




I also really liked the simplicity and accessibility of the ‘open_collab’ project - a free international collaborative workshop. Its interesting how each submission is from a different person in a different part of the world, however as a set, because they all appear in a similar format in black and white, seemingly contrasting and very different compositions work harmoniously in a larger composition. 





What I will take from Patrick Thomas’ talk today is to really consider function and meaning. To really consider what a project is for and why I am doing it. As Thomas stated, although some of his projects are intended to bring light to larger issues, that doesn’t always have to be the case, and while that’s true, maybe the responsibility of the graphic designer is to use this method of mass visual communication for a good cause. Nevertheless, for current projects that I’m thinking about such as a publication based on the concept of luck, it really made me think about the project - What is it for? What purpose does it serve? Is it purely to entertain and inform or can it link to a larger idea?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Science Fiction Research Project - Facts About Science Fiction

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/20-things-you-didnt-know-about-science-fiction 1.Arguably the inspiration for much science fiction traces back to  classical mythology . Think of it—Earthlings abducted by beings from the sky, humans morphing into strange creatures, and events that defy the laws of nature. 2.Writers for the early pulp magazines would often write under multiple pseudonyms so they could have more than one article per issue. Ray Bradbury—taking this practice to another level—used six different pen names. 3.Prominent physicists and space travel pioneers have (often secretly) contributed to SF lit. German rocket genius Wernher Von Braun wrote  space fiction  and was an adviser to sci-fi movies such as  Conquest of Space . 4.During the 1960s, James Tiptree Jr. penned sci-fi classics like  Houston, Houston, Do You Read?  but was so secretive that people suspected he was a covert government operative. 5.At age 6...
Read more

Connan Mockasin - Research and Facts

Image
Mockasin commonly plays with a Fender Stratocaster which he has modified by cutting off the top sides to create a uniquely shaped guitar. At the time of the release of his second album Caramel, Mockasin stated that he had rarely listened to any music at all for the past ten years, giving him space to focus on his own sound.  Connan Mockasin’s real name is Connan Hosford, originally when he arrived in the UK it was with his band ‘Connan and the Mockasin’s’ a name he chose because of his skills at making Mockasin shoes out of dirt bike tyres and sheep skin. Eventually as he become a solo artist, he adapted Mockasin as the surname for his stage name. As well as music, Mockasin dabbles in painting, the cover for his first album ‘Dolphin Love Forever’ is a self portrait he painted of himself. His paintings are surreal, colourful, imaginative and childlike. He also often paints his face and body for playing live or promotional imagery for an album, sometimes this is is to ch...
Read more

Rimowa - Pitch and Feedback

Rimowa -  It was really interesting for Commission to go through the presentation that they used to pitch for the Rimowa re-brand. Straight off the bat, one of the most interesting aspects was seeing the differences in their initial concepts, and the finished result, Chris addressed this by highlighting that when you’re pitching for a project and you win, that doesn’t mean that your designs will be applied as they are in the pitch, it means that you’ve won the opportunity to further work on it, and in Commission’s case, the project ended up developing in a few ways, a lot of this down to the CEO’s vision for the identity.   What also really struck me was how incredibly refined and thorough Commission’s presentation was, they created so many different aspects of collateral for the brand, and each was meticulously produced and photographed. They mentioned that they don’t normally do pitches, however this one they couldn’t refuse, and every member of the studio worked on the...
Read more