Jonathan Fleck

Jonathan has just this evening sent out the brief for the 4 week photo essay project. Part of this entails capturing or generating an original soundtrack.

“Sound: Your project will include sound so think about what sort of sound or soundtrack you want to have with your images. When you are taking photographs, think about sound at the location. Can you hear birds, humming electrical alternators, hushed voices or a distant motorway.”

Coincidentally, I just came across this beautiful sound track “Halloween Boat” by “Piano Magic” (first play button on the list), on the wonderful blog of illustrator/designer, Scott Hansen (ISO50). It’s a long track, at nearly 19minutes long, but is a great demonstration of the use of audio layers building on one another over time, in a kind of crescendo fashion. The track starts with a simple washing of the sea up and down a sandy beach. Ninety seconds later, a church bell is introduced, bonging in the background. Around the two minute mark, some shallow breathing is added to the mix. The bells and breathing are replaced by an electronic synthesiser, but the sound of the sea remains. A voice starts speaking, reciting, not singing, in a poetic style. This continues for some time, before gradually decrescendoing to a close. I would recommend taking the time to listen to the full track. Firstly, it’s very calming, but also could give some inspiration for your soundtrack production, in terms of using environmental sound and layering various audible elements, much like you might build up and blend visual layers in Photoshop or Illustrator.

This is my contribution to the Viscom Chalkboard. The quote comes from marketing guru Seth Godin, but I thought it was just so applicable given how hard we’re all working currently. And with 18 hours of work overnight, from printing and cutting out all the letter stencils with a hobby knife, measuring my leading, blutacking the letters on the wall in exactly the right position and drawing around with chalk, I think I think the meaning became all the more real for me with sore fingers, hands, wrists, and chapped lips (from all the chalk dust)…

James Chartrand is a professional and successful copywriter. But all is not as it seems. That’s because James is a woman. “Why James Chartrand Wears Women’s Underpants” is a fascinating insight into one of the great stigmas of the modern world. That is, despite decades and centuries of social development, feminism, voting right, equal working rights, and so on, women are still widely discriminated against when it comes to the world of work. This could not be more true in the relatively unregulated world of freelancing. Corporations have policies and legal audits to contend with to help keep things closer to the straight and narrow than they otherwise would be. But as a freelancer, it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. ‘James’ tells us her story, about how she found herself working 4 hours a week at minimum wage despite college education and previous office job experience. She turned to the internet, scouring for gigs she could do from home, such as writing. Initially she was treated like crap, and paid very little, but ‘James’ grew moderately more successful, but there was always a plateau that she couldn’t seem to get past. Then she decided to create a pen-name that she could market separately to her current business. But she made a decision that was to transform her life virtually overnight. She decided to become a man. No, she didn’t become a transvestite or transexual, her gender change was in name only. Right away, she started to earn more jobs, better paid jobs. Clients treated her with more respect, and asked for fewer corrections/modifications, or none at all. “James Chartrand” is a copywriter, but her insights could apply to any woman freelancers finding themselves hitting the glass ceiling. In this internet age, where it is perfectly possible and acceptable that a designer and client might never physically meet, nor even have a telephone conversation, might more and more women find themselves turning to this tactic? Of course there are many clients and businesses that treat equality as a core value of their business, and they will reap the rewards of that, but many more ignorant clients remain. It remains to be seen whether more women will turn to this approach, as society continues its painfully slow march towards true equality.

As part of the “Issues” class project, for which I’m putting together a kinetic typography piece, I’ve been looking for inspiration on the superb Vimeo.com. Whereas there are hundreds of good examples on both Vimeo and Youtube, I came across one studio in particular whose work just blew my mind. Motion Graphics studio MK12 have produced the graphics/credits for the Will Ferrell film, “Stranger than Fiction”, and more recently, the famous opening animation/graphics and gun barrel scene for Bond movie, Quantum of Solace.

You can see much of MK12’s astounding work here on Vimeo, their main website is here, or here’s a few links to some of the videos that stood out for me:

Stranger than Fiction Opening Scene
Stranger than Fiction Closing Credits
007: Quantum of Solace Barrel Shot
007: Quantum of Solace Main Title Reel
Untitled 01: Infinity

Amusing and informative article by web designer, Paddy Donnelly that really hits the nail on the head. The article is a semi-rant at those designers who don’t bother to learn the differences between “too” and “to”, “it’s” and “its”, and “affect” and “effect” (These last two in particular I see people mixing up all the time). He points out that a designer who can’t spell or use correct grammar, is like a surgeon who can’t use a pencil. Of course, as designers, we’re not expected to write eloquent multi-thousand word essays all the time, but we do need to create and use copy, and basic spelling/grammar can really detract from what would otherwise be an excellent piece of design. Paddy helpfully includes a small guide at the bottom of his article, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. If you want to read further and improve your copy writing skills, I’d recommend getting William Zinsser’s excellent “On Writing Well”, and William Strunk Jr.’s classic “The Elements of Style”.

On Wednesday a group of us—Winnie, Allister, Coleen, Dale, Richard, Janine and I—took a day trip to Bristol to visit the Banksy Exhibition at the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery. Here follows the first of what I’m sure will be a number of accounts from different perspectives on the exhibition.

(Group photo courtesy of Janine)

The journey was arduous, from meeting at the airport at 5:30am for a 6:30am flight, followed by nearly 5 hours of train, tube, train and taxi, finally arriving at the Museum shortly after 12:30pm. Before we even stepped out of the taxi, we were aghast at the size of the queue, snaking around barrier after barrier on a closed off road beside the exhibition. Printed signs along the queue indicated that we would have a 2h30m wait time for entry, which as we’d found out had been the case all day every day since opening on the 13th June!

Finally we entered the doors of the exhibition, and were greeted by such exhibits as a burnt-out ice-cream van with a huge upturned cone spilling ice-cream over the roof and down the windscreen, surrounded by an old, partially buried shopping trolley, oil barrel and road sign. In the same entrance foyer were a couple of statues, one mixing a classical-Greek style naked figure with a face-covering bandana and a suicide bombers vest, the other, a statue of an angel with wings, but also wearing a mini-skirt, and holding a tin of beer, cigarette and pair of high heels. Right away, the tone was set for an exhibition that speaks of modern decay and pokes fun at many of the institutions that impact on our daily lives, yet often are the source of great controversy. How ironic that Banksy’s work is itself so controversial. Often stencilled and painted on buildings, both public and private, most often done illegally and in the shadow of night, Banksy has attracted the ire of the police and governmental bodies. Yet the people of Bristol recently voted to keep one of his most tendentious pieces of public art — a naked lover hanging one-handed from an outside window-sill, whilst the woman’s husband searches angrily, looking out the window for the object of his wife’s affair.

Much of Banksy’s work is a humorous commentary on real-life situations that any one of us might find ourselves in, as much again is direct political statement. We see here juxtapositions of the queen and politicians with monkeys, immediately speaking of Banksy’s deep disrespect and dislike of these people. The exposition is not for everyone – much of the displayed work is offensive, some vile, but what is interesting is how this Bristolian graffiti criminal has risen to worldwide acclaim as an artist, able to attract massive crowds of fans to his first exhibition, as well as opening up yet another debate on the nature of art. In the first room, he has displayed numerous paintings, photos and murals, graphically demonstrating the aforementioned worldview.

Five riot policemen skipping through a meadow, holding hands and smelling flowers, another with a third world child with water pail in hand, wearing an oversized torn t-shirt that shouts “I hate Mondays!”, a painting on metal wire mesh of the familiar image from 50p coins—the original portrays Britannia accompanied by a Lion, and round shield, and holding a trident—the Banksy version replaces the head of the trident with a CCTV camera, a painting of a small malnourished child pulling a fat American couple in a traditional Japanese rickshaw, as they take pictures of said child on their camera-phone. Moving upstairs, the rest of the Museum appears at a casual glance untouched by Banksy, with glass cabinets displaying china, and stuffed/faux-stuffed animals, as well as other traditional museum exhibits. Yet on closer inspection, we see a lamb with muzzle over its mouth in amongst the other animals, and a traditional horse-drawn gypsy caravan, but with a very modern wheel clamp attached, and yellow eviction notices stuck to its door.

A further large chamber showed off a range of animatronics and other 3D exhibits, showing Banksy’s attitude to the practice of keeping animals in cages, and using them for food and fur. In one cage, there are some newly hatched chicks inside their enclosure, watched over by mother hen, but these ‘chicks’ have been rendered as chicken nuggets with legs, and instead of pecking grain off the ground, are pecking their ‘heads’ into a disposable ketchup container. A set of glass ‘reptile’ boxes show off hotdogs, salami, and other types of sausage, moving and wiggling around. As you exit the museum, you could easily miss the suicidal and drunk Ronald McDonald perched on the ledge high above the exit, contemplating jumping to his death.

So all in all, a really enjoyable exhibition and well worth the visit, despite all the travelling to get there and queuing to get in. It remains open until the 31st August.

A selection of photos are below – to see more, click here.

Video 1, Video 2, Video 3, Video 4, Video 5, Video 6, Video 7

You can save 2 people. You have 5 seconds to choose. Who will you save? The latest web masterpiece (and masterpiece is not too strong a word!) from Swedish design firm, North Kingdom, attempts to throw the visitor headfirst into the mindset of a soldier. What will you decide? How will you decide? How fast can you think? Split-second decisions can mean the difference between life and death, and this recruitment campaign for the Swedish Armed Forces gives you the opportunity to find out if you have what it takes. Dark, gritty, and thoroughly enjoyable – the set design is cinematic, the animation polished, and the narrative engaging. The website successfully communicates the values desired of the ideal recruit through a coherent mix of acting, set design, lighting, voice, background sounds, and animation. Colours and lighting are subdued and minimal throughout, and there’s reallly the sense that one is walking through a damp dark underground cavern where all sorts of dubious experiments or torturous acts are conducted. Make sure you have your speakers turned on.

I came across this web designer’s CV tonight, on digg.com. Design-wise, it’s not bad, I’m sure it could be done better, but I think the idea is great. But it did remind me of the wonderful graphics designed by the critically acclaimed information designer from New York, Nicolas Felton.

Nicolas Felton spends his life organising data. Part designer, part accountant, his passion for numbers is immense. He manages to turn a bunch of boring facts and figures into something engaging and exciting—no small feat! Creating projects for clients as diverse as the New York Times, Wired Magazine, and Esquire, he succeeds at drawing attention to the minutiae of life. Nowhere is this clearer and more obvious than the Annual Reports he designs each year documenting just about every facet of his life. Details such as the number of emails sent, cups of coffees consumed, and number of miles run are all documented in painstaking detail, yet there is something oddly compelling. These aren’t some numbers knocked up in an Excel spreadsheet—Felton is a master of his art, and believes in making data beautiful. Have a look at the images and do have a look at his websites.

http://feltron.com/index.php
http://theofficeof.feltron.com/
http://daytum.com/