Humphrey Weightman

Graphic Designer

Today we had a visit from Humphrey Weightman.  Humphrey is a Graphic Designer that specialises in Typography. He has had a very long and varied career, starting work as an apprentice in London, then living in Edinburgh, Spain, USA, then returning to Coldstream, in the Scottish Borders. He is well travelled and his enthusiasm for travel is apparent.

Typography is the technique of arranging type and the written text in a readable and appealing way.(something I have probably failed at writing this essay)
 I didn't realise that this was included in Graphic Design. I guess I thought Graphic Design was more a architectural design incorporating building etc.

While I didn't understand a lot of the terminology Humphrey spoke about regarding Graphic Design. I could relate to certain situations and scenarios, like the importance of having the right equipment, a strong working relationship with the client and a team of competent people you trust to help with certain work loads.

I enjoyed Humphrey's talk and his knowledge about life in general, quotes and truth of setting up, starting and enduring the working life. If I took anything from his talk it was that in an ever-changing world adaptability is crucial. However, I do think that finding and keeping your identity of who and how u work is important.

Trip to The Haining

Today, we went for a visit to The Haining Estate, Selkirk.  The purpose of the visit was to record and detail information regarding our Assignment. The assignment was to take photos and drawings so we could take information back to the classroom and design ideas for the café.

The Haining lies in the Ettrick Valley, at the heart of the Scottish Borders, within the Royal Burgh of Selkirk, 30 miles south of Edinburgh and just over 20 miles north of the border with England.

The Haining Estate is now ran as a charitable trust and relies on volunteer’s to help maintain the house and grounds, since the death of the owner Andrew Nimmo-Smith.  The trust has set out a long term vision to develop the house and estate as a focus for the arts and contemporary culture. The Haining have exhibitions, music, meetings, fairs, educational initiatives and community celebrations and is also hired out for weddings. Our assignment is to have three ideas to incorporate Art and Design in the future plans of The Haning Estate.  One of the future developments is a café.

The Haning Estate has an arched entrance that leads onto the woodland drive, to the house and gates itself. Upon viewing the property you can tell it’s a Georgian building.

The wood shutters and columns stand out as an interesting characteristic, and are visually pleasant. This is a feature I’d like to use in my design for the café. I think bringing the columns inside the café using trompe l’oeil to create a realistic design on the wall as a feature is something I’d like to create.

The Haining has a vast amount of woodland and this is something I would like to use in my second choice for the design brief. A play park, trails, elf/fairy gardens and game stations are some of the ideas I have. I would like to education the children using wildlife and forestry making learning fun and factual. 

Another idea I had was to design Menu holders. Made from wood, to look like the shutters or to have a silhouette of the haining.
I did look at the image of The White House and liked the 3 colour monochrome effect it had.. I do think that this would work well for The Haining

Again I haven’t yet made to much research into how it would come about or look. I do have many more ideas running through my head and will have to look, feel and play around some more before I get my 3 definite designs.

The Haining

The Haining

Statue I'd like to use on the cushion plan I have

One of the trees i'd like to use on the cushion plan I have..

detail of the columns

I plan to use this image in the cafe walls to make a full length mural. The columns I'd use as a trompe l'oeil design.

Reflections  Im going to try and create this to use in my project as I feel its an important part of the haining

Studios could hold open events for families and incorpate seasonal learning, leaves finding, wildlife watchin and habitats etc

The woodland park for children to explore, play and learn.  I woud like to create a fun and adventous path for younger and older children to follow around the loch. adding play slides and swings, elf houses and fairy magic. 

This tree would make a good place to advertise fairy adventures as its on the way up to the carpark just before the house..The old cut down tree next to it could be used or carved...

Forest paths could led to a fun play area

On visiting the haining I really liked the reeds that were in the loch.. I have decided that I would like to create a cushion of four designs incorparating the loch in watercolour effect on fabric and then having a dark inked image over the background.. I plan to use a tree as one design, the reeds as another and maybe the statue of the womans head as another. These are works in progress. 

Sam cornwall (P)

Sam Cornwall

.Sam Christopher Cornwall ARPS BA (hons)

Bachelor of Photographic Art, Newport University, Wales, UK.

Awarded Royal Photographic Society Associateship (ARPS)

Awarded Royal Photographic Society Licentiateship (LRPS)

Creator/owner of The Taxi Office Art Gallery, Hawick.

Sam came into our college today to talk about his work. I found him knowledgeable and enthusiastic. He told us about the projects hes involved in and how his interests regarding photography have changed over the years...

He told us all about the dark room and explained a little about how timing, light and chemicals all play a massive part in the outcome of the finish photo/plate.  Also he told us about the little caravan he kitted out making it in to a dark room.  He travelled around the UK on a project know as The Pilgrimage.  I believe this is where his passion really lies.

Also, his interests with photography seem to be his love for the disposable camera. After a spell of not really knowing what to do next, he found himself buying 127 disposable cameras. These were from a sale bin with the free developing for 9 months. Happily snapping away, I guess he got a love again for the everyday picture as he told us, it felt good taking photos again. He when on to do a project called Tacky Red Cameras. Which he wanted to portray the idea of past, present and future. 

After the birth of his son, Sam decided to start the project,  A second a Day from Birth. Every day either him or his wife videoed Indigo his son.  After his first year they editied the video with the images and sounds. 

I personally enjoyed learning and viewing the Plates, Sam brought in . Wet plates of images that are original and are a one off..   It was also interesting to learn about another artist.  I look forward to meeting all types of artist all with different views, passions and interests.  

Overall I do feel that photographic can play a massive part in any designers projects.  Basic understanding at least is vital with an ever changing world. This is something Im going to be aware of and follow up some more in depth. 

buzzy life of a bee

Cubism, so far the main build up of my work by George Braque (still life with grapes)

Cubism

Cubism!!  Never heard of it!!

For our Assignment we were to be a curator of an exhibition.  My first search results were informing me that George Braque and Pablo Picasso created Cubism in 1908.

WHY?

Simply put, Cubism was invented so people could observe all views of a person or object at once, from any angle or all angles giving all the picture or object. 

UNDERSTANDING

Upon viewing Cubism I couldn't understand the images I was seeing. Because they were unclear my mind couldn't make much sense of it. In my head I thought ART should make a little sense or have a clear meaning. ( Just how naive was I)

To fully understand the idea I decided to take the work of George Braque's,  Still Life with Grapes and investigate it closer. By taking images in Black and White as well as colour  and cutting into some  photocopies of the Still Life I was  able try and reassemble them into some kind of order. (This proved difficult)  I cut out and stuck down the same shapes and depths of what I envisaged the work would of been like. I realised just how complex George Braque's work must of  been and the effort and planning he must of when through to achieve the finish piece. 

Building up the frame work

Next I painted and highlighted pieces. 

finished
For my first attempt, I wasn't very happy with the end result. I realised that I have missed some pieces out and the sizing wasn't as exact as it should of been.
MISSING THE POINT
I still felt I was missing the point that Pablo and George were wanting me to see. I researched more using books, internet, and drawing and sketching.
I learnt that they was two stages to Cubism. The first stage being Analytical. Analytical Cubism was taking an object and dissecting the viewpoint by viewpoint, braking it down and looking at it from different angles, overlapping, colouring, shading and painting. The colour were simple as to make sure the viewer wasnt distracted from the form of the image on display.
Synthetic Cubism was the second stage (1912 - 1914) Synthetic Cubism seemed to have simpler softer shapes. Brighter colours, textures and patterns. Collage was giving and making a new approach to the work.
INFLUENCES
Cubism extended to other artistic fields outside painting and sculpture. In literature, the written works of Gertrude Steir, employs repetition and repetitive phrases as building blocks in both passages and whole chapters of her work.
Fashion and fabrics were showing interest and big houses like Chanel and Paul Poiret included cubism onto the catwalks. Even today Cubism influences can be seen on the shop floors and catwalks. 
For me the biggest and most exciting influence Cubism had was on Architecture. Architectural Cubism centred on the reconstitution of the three-dimensional form, using simple geometric shapes, without the illusion of classic perspective. Some elements could even be superimposed or made transparent using glass. They could even penetrate one another.
PRAGUE

The city of Prague in the Czech Republic is one country that really applied Cubism into the Architecture. It flourish between 1910 -1914 and after World War 1 a new style of cubist architectural developed Rondo-cubism. Rondo-cubism fused cubism with round shapes. Led by artists like Janak, Rondo-cubism added circles and folklorist elements. They used this new way to increase their national pride and identity.
OVERVIEW
Architectural design makes more sense to me than the actually art. I feel this is because its pleasing visually and seems also to have more purpose. While it is still wacky in someways it was futuristic for its time and I'm left fascinated at the immense scale Cubism had influencing architecture. I do look forward to seeing what other movements like futurism. dada and realism had on architecture.