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!!!!! :)
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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. So, I decided to actually take the day off from doing my dissertation, and look into my other projects a little. So I did a bit more research into my deck of card project. I mentioned I wanted to do a number of different deck designs. Such as zombies, cup cakes, alcohol, fairy tale characters , etc. So here are a few images I looked into for these topics as research today: So as you can see, I began to look at a few zombie characters, then moved onto cupcakes. Then I thought about zombie cup cakes or even just monster cupcakes. I think it would be really horror -cute to create these little characters that are meant to be terrifying and yet, you put them in a situation where they're cute and yummy. I like the idea of that dynamic , This is something I will most certainly be continuing to look into.
I then had a meeting today with tutors and we were talking of grading charts and really stepping up our game within all of our works in every aspect. So, I will admit I honestly wasn't thinking of getting these playing cards printed out. Mainly because I didn't think it was possible. Then I looked it up.... it's more than just possible but it's affordable. So I am definitely thinking of getting my actual deck of cards printed. I did want to have a series of these. But this will push me harder with my designs to get these to the best of my ability and here's hoping people will be interested enough in buying them off me. This maybe something I could think about doing for the final end of year show. I also really need to get my logo designed to get my new business cards printed. I have to admit I haven't really looked at my re-branding project for a week now. I am still thinking on what to do, but I again have to blame in on the dissertation. For the rest of tonight I plan to do just that and go back to my re-branding project and do a few more sketches. 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.
So today I actually went into uni... on a Saturday! Being such a good little student. I actually got a lot of my dissertation done, I am starting to see the finish line in the distance. There is still an awful lot to do, don't get me wrong. I aim to continue working on my dissertation. Feeling a little optimistic but I think I might have it done next week. I do however have a meeting next week with my CCS tutor. So hopefully she'll love what I have done and I won't have to do anymore tweaks to it. I do however don't really understand why uni have decided to talk to us about our dissertations 2 weeks before hand in. I mean this in the sense that they have encouraged us to make our dissertations into actual professional looking books. To even get these books made, I would need to send my dissertation off tomorrow if now first thing on Monday morning. I personally am just going to concentrate on the work it's self, get it bounded professionally. Then depending on how fantastic I think my work is, I'll make it into a professional looking book for my end of year show. I do understand their points of view with having it all arty farty, cause we're art students. Especially with how they have also said we wont be getting marked on how pretty looking it is.... Juuuuuuuuussst saying. The push really isn't all there for me.
So I realized I didn't mention much of what I did yesterday, Or should I say I left a bit unsaid. So basically we had an external examiner come in to have a look at the interim show and ask us a few questions. He even put us into small groups, and gave us a task. We were asked to go over to the show and see the other peoples work within our groups. Read their statements and look at their work, we then had to write them questions that had to be answered by midnight last night. So just in case you've forgotten, this is my work and my statement together: I was then given 3 questions , so here is what I asked and what I replied:
I plan to use both photography and Illustration. I am unsure how this will look. But I am planning on exploring this path within my main project. I want to merge both illustration and photography together. This could even be as simple as drawing on a photograph. I will also be exploring these separately So yes, these were my incredibly long answers. Today! I went to my meeting with my tutor, I got a lot of great advise, I have to admit it is rather nerve racking when speaking of my project and everyone around me is so interested in it and really love what I'm doing..... A little more than me. Maybe this is due to being too close to my project at the moment. But I am so pumped for my dissertation now, I got a great confidence boost today. My only worry is really getting everything together. I also heard today which sort of brought me down, I understand it, I do just think it's B.S. I heard that even if you get over a C grade for the dissertation work. this grade doesn't effect my studio work grade. If I get below a C grade for my dissertation, it actually drags my studio work grade down. Not happy about this. Feel like packing it in. Planning on working my wee butt off tomorrow on this dissertation. Possibly going into uni to do this, I have to admit though I'm having my valentines day early and having a fatty night with my flat mate. So watching Walking Dead, eating pizza, chicken wings, ice cream, a lorry load of chocolate, and having a few bottles of wine..... hoping I wont be hungover tomorrow .. eeeek! So today, I spent most of it working on my dissertation. I didn't really get what I wanted done, done today. This was mainly due to simply going back into my dissertation and re-arranging what I wanted to keep in and what I wanted to shorten down and delete. It took a lot longer than I thought I was going to. Although I have to admit, instead of making things clearer in my mind on what I'm doing. It confused me a little more :S I am however going to a meeting tomorrow about my dissertation, so hopefully I will get more guidance and if not, hopefully I will get scared back on track with deadlines.
Finally have gotten a start on retouching my dissertation . Today I spent most of it reading my dissertation, as well as looking into new subjects for it. Such as thinking of other cultures that money is heavily evolved in. I thought of the gypsy community, as when there is an occasion. They go all out and money really is not a concern. This is mainly the view from "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding" TV show on channel 4. What does interest me about this culture is how they travel in their caravans and just because we see how they live from the outside. While we stay in our brick permanent houses. I know I assumed they hadn't much money and were actually rather poor. This isn't the case. Highly religious, some would say very old ways of thinking in how the girls are brought up . Such as no sex before marriage, married young, taken out of school from the age of 12, not believed to have jobs as the woman is to be kept at home to cook, clean and look after the children. The wedding day is truly the biggest day of a gypsy girls life. So yes, I find their culture very interesting in how they view consumerism and how they follow their tradition. I also FINALLY got around into looking at the survey results from the after the festive season survey. I have to admit there was many of the results that shocked me. here our two that I found very interesting. With this question I have to admit I thought I would get a higher number of people saying yes. As I know when speaking to family and friends a lot of people do say that they need a better way to save money. So for this to be a 50/50, I found pretty remarkable. This seriously shocked me. I am very cheap when it comes to getting people Christmas presents. As some of my close friends will know, I hate that just because it's Christmas you have to get people gifts. I don't agree with that, I do know that yes it is different when it comes to children. When it comes to my own age group or anyone over 15 really. I do not see the point. If there is something in particular that you want and you ask for, that is fine. Even if you see something for someone that you know they'll love, again that's fine. But not just aimlessly going round buying people gifts for the sake of it. Little rant over...
Tomorrow I will be continuing on with my dissertation work. |