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 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.
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, I finally got into uni today. Running around like a headless chicken. I recently have been assessed and found to have dyslexia and also dyscalculia. So uni have given my lots of new toys to help me with my work. I also went and got my dissertation draft, so I can now write all over it and everything to hopefully help me with my dissertation. I also went in and seen the interim show. I have to say my book covers looked very smart and I really think my little blurb about my work made everything very professional looking. Here is a few people's work from my class, I really hope none of them mind me taking a little snap shot of their work and putting them up on my blog. I just wanted to show a variety of the work that was up for the interim show. So as you can see there is a huge variety, and some people's work looking more professional than others. Although this was a mock "exam" for the end of year show, I am already starting to think of what I can do differently, and what sort of work I want to have done and shown for that. I was honestly very surprised how much work does go into a show. I think it was very much to do with the planning and about 60 art students running round and slightly freaking out about what they were doing and getting the space to have their work put up.
That's all really from me today. Tomorrow I will be getting stuck into dissertation work. Hopefully I wont hate myself. So, today has been rather busy already as I was travelling most of yesterday I didn't get any work done. So I have woken up to a bunch of emails and a whole bunch of work to do. The interim show was top of my to do list. As my statement that is to go with my work needed a bit more work to it. So i tried my hardest, but as I am doing so many different things. To get that into a well described 200 words. Was incredibly stressful and annoying. I hope however that it is good enough for my tutors. As I feel I have really done my best. I have as been looking into Hedonism for my research into my dissertation. Hedonism actually has a lot to do with my work. Hedonism is the pursuit of pleasure, sensual self-indulgence. So this really does get my work into a better structure of better understanding. I have also been looking into behavioral economics. As a brief description wiki has summarized this as " Behavioral economics and the related field, behavioral finance, study the effects of psychological, social, cognitive, and emotional factors on the economic decisions of individuals and institutions and the consequences for market prices, returns, and the resource allocation" Again this narrows down my train of thought from being all over the place and struggling to say what I mean as well as having more facts. As I am beginning to freak out a little as I now have exactly a month till hand in for my dissertation. SO the chaos is starting to build.
That's all from me today. Here is an image by Tom Bagshaw. I have been looking into his designs for my deck of cards brief. Today I have been doing more of my dissertation, mainly looking back over my draft and looking at notes. I am still slightly struggling with a lot of the language. But I am getting there, I feel this is a very slow process though. Not much really to report on today. Although, I have started to do a bit more research into the theory of happiness. I feel like my dissertation is already starting to come together more. Tomorrow I will be hanging my pieces for the interim show. I am actually rather excited to see how the will look for the show. So I will be able to show it looking all pretty. For my main project I have been looking at possibly doing some performance art. Similar to a flash mob. I have been toying with the idea of consumerism and how there are seven kinds of ways we shop. One of them being is we copy each other. You see someone with a new phone that can do everything but it's primary use, of being a phone. We want it as we see so many others with it. We feel a need to be kept in the loop. So! I thought it would be very entertaining if I managed to get everyday people to do their shopping in a sheep costume. Even as I write this I then remember the term "Copy Cat". Again this would be the same thing, just different animals. Not too sure if I would be able to get enough people for this and I do realize timing should have been more towards Christmas. But this doesn't mean I can't do this during the year. This again is just one of my crazy ideas.
So yea, I will be able to show how my place will look for the interim show. I have been running round like a headless chicken all day today. But I am not totally ready for the interim show. I got my finals printed and mounted on foam board. They look so much more professional. So I am very happy with how today went. I even did a little bit more research with my dissertation work. I have also made a start on my dissertation, so today was incredibly productive. I am just so tired at the moment after all the running around. But I'm happy :) Not the best photo I know, but I did try my best. I know it's hard to figure out but on Thursday I will be able to show you how it will look mounted on the wall. With my dissertation I have not only started looking at photoshoot ideas, but also poster ideas. I think this image in it's self is very true and I think a lot of people can relate to it, whether it be themselves or people they know. Tomorrow I plan to look up the survey I gave out after the festive rush. If you haven't already I would really appreciate you take just one minute of your time to tick a few boxes. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CFZ7G9T
I started to look back into my main project. I went back a little bit and created another info graphic. I decided to make it a little more cartoon like and interesting to look at , as the others I feel lacked that. They are very boring images just hovering on a page. I then went and looked back at my previous ideas. I decided to then make a mind map of some of the ideas I have that I want to maybe have as my finals for the end of the year. Still not totally finished, but you get the point. There is still more I want to add to this. As well as a lot more work I need to start looking into. I am in a way going right back to the start. With help from my tutors, we have made a sort of list that will help me, with what way I can write my dissertation. As I am not the best writer in the world. Tomorrow I will hopefully get my final book covers printed and mounted. Have to admit I am a little worried as I have never spray mounted any of my work myself. I even worried myself so much I looked up a few You Tube video demonstration videos. There was one where a guy had a brick to keep everything in place. But he was making sure there was no dirt on it and I'm not going to lie, I had a little bit of Father Jack stuck in my head: Yep, my immaturity levels sometimes scare me too ;)
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