So I got a hell of a lot done today, I am almost there to having everything finished up, it's just a case of getting things printed and mounted for the degree show. Today I spent mainly drawing up my jokers for the Monster deck and the cup cake deck. I also went back and fixed my traditional deck of cards. I have now gone online and have managed to find a quote to get them printed. I am just not too sure at the moment whether or not to get multiples printed off to sell, as I am a poor student. At the moment I have worked out that I am able to at least get 3 of the cupcakes and 3 of the monster decks printed. I have looked at my traditional deck of cards and although I do like it. I have realized that they more than likely will not be very interesting to others. I would prefer to get all of the one deck of cards, So I am going to ask around and see what others suggest. I have basically until Sunday to decide. As I had hoped to get them printed out for my hand in. But looks like it's going to take roughly 3 weeks to get them sent here, so yea. Anyways here are my jokers I designed:

I have also decided on which backs I want to have on my cards:

I am not too sure about the cupcake backing, I am hoping to use the jumble of cupcakes, although I am unsure. I have however decided to go with these blue and red backs for the Monsters and Traditional decks of cards. The red for the Traditional and the Blue for the Monsters. 

I am hoping to do more research into the photography portraits I previously done and get them all prepared as well as my cards above for print for the degree show, I am currently thinking of having the below as my exhibition:

obviously With the Cup Cakes I am planning on just choosing one of the suits and I will do the same with the other two suits, then on the fourth line of the cards I am planning to show the jokers choose one of the backings. to display. I was also thinking about even having some vinyl gold coins around the portraits. I also want to experiment again with words at the bottom or along the top of the portraits with facts. Although I already have a feeling that these may be stronger on their own. However I am still planning on experimenting further. 

Even as I look at these now, I have realized I haven't yet bought the piggy banks, I am hoping to also go to hobby craft. Maybe find some cheaper Piggy Banks.... Anyways, to get to the point, I may even experiment and see if I might be able to write facts about how companies exploit people out of money or even just the facts of how money in big businesses are corrupted. I knew my dissertation research would come in handy now!

That's it for me today, hopefully more to show tomorrow. 

So, I was unable to blog yesterday due to travelling home for the weekend. I also went out and celebrated a little with  friends, as my dissertation is done :D

So I was unable to blog yesterday. I haven't really done much uni work since I have been home, just doing the rounds of  seeing friends and family. I am hoping to start doing more logo work tomorrow, I have also been thinking a little bit more on, what to do for my main project.  I will explain a little bit more tomorrow, however in short I am thinking of just making a book or even just a poster on how to help students save money and possibly looking  into well-being of students. Not too sure, will look more into it tomorrow. Thats all from me for today. 

So, today I went again back into my dissertation. I am really starting to panic about getting it binded.  I have came to terms that I won't be able to get it made into a book, by the deadline.  However, everywhere  seems to take a week to bind a thesis. So I am hoping to have this officially done  by tomorrow, printed out  by Tuesday, and  possibly get it taken in to get binded, if not tomorrow, Wednesday.  I have a back up plan though, however I think uni may yell at me, if I am unable to get it binded in time. I plan to pray to the staples god and go to staples to get a  clip folder. Then if allllllll else feels, I may get the sewing kit out and sew my pages together....... They will have a digital copy, anyways.... so yea.  This is my weird plan of slight panic.... i'm so impatient, mainly cause I have never gotten a thesis binded before. All my friends are telling me to chill out.... Can't.  

Minus my Dissertation, I did a bit more research for my new logo design. So I started to look up other peoples.

They are all very well thought out and interesting, I don't want to rush  the logo design, however, I would like to get business cards  made up soon, especially for the end of year show.  So the pressure is already on for that. 

Tomorrow, I plan to run round like a mad idiot asking if I can get my thesis binded anywhere in uni. Then hopefully get a list of prices and a time frame. As well as finishing my dissertation!, that would help alot!

I also want to start getting ideas onto paper, start doing a bit of design work for my deck of cards project. Which is another project I have to be careful of, timescale wise due to getting them printed off. 

So yea, a lot going on..... hopefully I will have a better idea of what is going on with all this stuff tomorrow.

Today has been pretty stressful, I have been again changing my dissertation around a bit. I am incredibly close to calling it quits. I have written the dissertation, I have spent a long time doing it, and not it's just fixing technicality's. I have so much work I need to catch up on. With my dissertation, I am running so far behind. My brother keeps getting it my for structure, and I have just spent the past hour alphabetizing my reference list.   I am just so, so very much done.  I more than appreciate the help I have been getting, but I really need to  start concentrating on my degree, the whole reason why I am still here. My dissertation is only 25% of my final grade,  I am completely at the end of my tether.  I want to get back to designing photoshoots and designing card decks :( I'm just done.

I have to admit though, with complaining about my dissertation, I did manage to get a bit of research done today in regard to my deck of cards project. 

I have decided on which on my royals is to go with which suit . I am hoping to get started on this tomorrow. Here's hoping tomorrow will be a better day.

So, today I was doing more of my dissertation. I re-visited another part of my research. Looking at Coca Cola, Coca Cola have an entire  campaign dedicated to happiness.   They are trying to get people to associate happiness with their product. Here is one crazy video of theirs. Please watch till the end, you won't be sorry!..... just a bit weirded out. 

This is just one of many videos that Coca Cola have done.  They took the "Happiness Van" to Russia, The Netherlands,  London,  India, etc.  You can clearly see how they get people to associate  happiness with their product.  However, they also get more material items. Such as roses, toys, t-shirts, and of course the full roasted pig.  If you look up , Coca Cola Happiness, you will find their website, it contains a lot of very good information on  happiness. Such as quotes from historic figures throughout history, on what they thought happiness was.  I do recommend you check it out, but forget that it's been done by Coca Cola.  Coca Cola will not bring you happiness, just a sugar rush.

So,  I had my meeting today with my tutor, I ended up getting a lot of new ideas for my dissertation, so now going back and looking at my work.  I was also reminded of this part of my research a video by Annie  Leonard, she looked into where all are stuff comes from and where it goes when we throw it away. It is a very interesting video, I highly recommend you watch it: 

So as you can see there is a lot more to things and stuff than we originally thought. I was also asked a pretty big question today by my tutor, regarding my dissertation,  which was:

Q:    As a designer how I felt about happiness, especially when put in a scenario of working with a company specifically designed to sell people products they don't need. What would I do?

A:    I have to admit, I would take the job. We all need money to survive, to a certain degree. However, I would give back to my community in my spare time. I have previously volunteered at local charity shops, it was actually a lot of fun, and I met so many people. Giving things to charity and helping people, is not something I just simply write about. It is something that I already do. I encourage people to do the same.

And that's my answer and I'm sticking to it. I also gave my dissertation to my brother to read over. Mainly due to him continually nagging to see it. As he has already been through uni and written his own dissertation.  I have to admit as soon as I pressed send. I regretting everything. However I will admit, instead of him telling me everything I did was wrong, like i thought he was going to. He was incredibly helpful,  I actually think I will get a good grade on my dissertation now.  YAY!!!!! :)

I am actually so tired, but it is finished. However I have started making this into a book and I have to admit all the editing is such a pain. I have also noticed how many pages I am continually adding. I am not even half way through putting my dissertation on the templates and   I am already on page  22. Although I have to admit Blurb do make the whole process very easy.Just I am not too sure if I will have this done on time to get it handed in for the 6th. I can see me being able to send this off by some point tomorrow, however. I have also just sent it off to get one last proof read before I get it printed. 

I have a meeting tomorrow with my CCS tutor, although I am not exactly sure what we will talk about seeing as we're nearing the end of the process. I am also getting to the point of not caring anymore. This has really been a lot of work. I will admit I have enjoyed it. I just hope I get a good enough mark on this.

I am going to go now and stuff my face with chocolate, eagerly waiting for all this to be over..... I think it may be an early night tonight 

I am now officially eating my own words. I felt like I had a lot of time to get my dissertation done.  Which I technically still do, however. I found out today that I can get my dissertation made into a book, and that there is still time left. So I have been trying to get it all done today. To insure it will be here on time, I am also being extra sure on time, as I plan on sending my dissertation off to get professionally proof read. It can take 3- 5 days.... Although I have been staring at my laptop screen solidly for  8 hours, I feel like I am now literally typing gobblely gook. Not much of what I am typing anymore makes much sense  within my dissertation. My brain  gave up on me about an hour  ago. So I feel like I need to  call it a night, I have had a lot of sugar today and am feeling really wired. I honestly feel I could get it done if I continued, but. It's gonna be so poorly done, especially as I am now beginning to tweak my conclusion. So yes, calling it a night and backing away.....

About to collapse into a pancake coma..... So last night, I left off saying I was going to go back and do a  few quick sketching and research for  my re-branding. I ended up actually looking at a few different species of octopuses: 

Although I did start looking at species of octopuses, I started getting so captured on how they looked. So I had good intentions, but then I just started looking at how pretty they were. I however now know, I want my Kraken logo  to look at though it's under water rather than on land or in some kind of container.  I have to admit I am starting to get really excited  about this, I feel things are starting to become clearer in my mind of what I want to create.

Today I did a bit more of my dissertation,  I am now almost at my conclusion. I have however decided to add a few more things about cultures. I have started to sort of figure out what information I want to put into it. I have compared American consumerism culture with UK consumerism culture.  From my surveys, It would seem that within the UK, we are more spiritual,  with how we react to consumerism traits. 1 in 20 of us actually participated in Black Friday, and it wasn't even in stores, but online.  There is a lot of huge differences.


I am hoping to continue into looking into different cultures. I have already mentioned about looking into the Gypsy culture, I have previously looked into  Bhutan. I would like   to continue this theme looking into  Chinese   and  Japanese   cultures and their proverbs on happiness  and  money.  Maybe they  have a saying that can effect us in how we think on consumerism and lining our pockets.


I also have decided to look into how charity effects our happiness. I am not too sure if I will be able to fit this all into my dissertation,  I am already at almost 7000 words. My limit is 8000, so here's hoping if I do have to shorten some things down to make room it'll work out for the best rather than not making any sense. As I have said before thought,  I am very happy with where I am in my dissertation. I am glad I have another two weeks to sit and think about my dissertation and how it's going to work out. For once I am glad I don't have a job, so I can use this time.  

 I am now half way to completing  my dissertation, YAY!!!! 
Within my dissertation,  today I was  looking more into sweatshops. Sweatshops only exists because there is a market for cheap products. The amount of accidents there are within them. Especially  within the past four years there has been two major incidents with sweat shops in Bangladesh. Many workers loosing their lives, and being left with nothing. Some lost their limbs and have had to readjust to life. Shockingly some  have even returned to work in other sweat shops. 

So yea, within my dissertation I was ranting about that for a good wee bit.  also went back into  my research  to look at the effects of more money actually seems to lower happiness

This is the most updated graph I can find depicting this result.  Although this graph just shows  America. (yes i realize it doesn't have a title, it is a terrible graph but i looked it up, it's definitely american happiness). So yea, this is what I have been doing all day. Tomorrow I am hoping to get my primary research part of my dissertation done.  So I can move on the my second last section of my dissertation. Well looking forward to it.