Caio's Graduate Diploma

After I finished assembling the final publication, Teresa created a document with its instructions, explaining its interactive shift dynamic, and uploaded it to issuu for a better visualization. Read it here:

After having laid out all of the work within the publication it was time to create its cover page, and all the title pages for each practitioner’s section, which we had planned would follow a similar style. Unfortunately I didn’t have much time to experiment with different title designs, and could only create some simple ones, but I might still explore other options before the publication launch. Here are some of the experiments I conduced:

I showed this to the group to discuss which ones we preferred, and then went on to try to figure out how they would work within the colours of the publication. Here’s the complete page in which I carried out the experiments:

This was the chosen format for the titles, with the colours for each member’s section and black and white options for the main cover page:

The group decided that each of the members would lay their pages out however they want their work to be displayed, and then we would bring all of them together to see what we should and what we shouldn’t use. After that, I would put them together and make sure it all looks cohesive, doing all of the corrections necessary.

Since each of the members has a different cover page before their work, we decided we wouldn’t categorize the works by page number, but instead, the colour, and additionally, asked each member to brink the colour they want their cover pages to be so that we could analyse them together and decide on the colours within the publication based on that, once again making any changes necessary for the unity and cohesion of the work.

Luckily, the colours brought in worked very well together, and based on them we decided to use a range of pastel colours to differentiate our sections. These are the colours for each practitioner within the publication:

Having decided that the publication would have a square format, we were advised to have create a grid of 12 by 12 squares on it to lay the images on, as 12 is a divisible by different numbers thus facilitating the creation of harmonious, symmetrical designs within it. These are two of the layout tests we conduced:

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By creating a 12 by 12 grid and ruling out the outer squares as margin, we would only have 10 by 10 squares to actually work with, so we separated it into a 14 by 14 grid in total, which would allow us to freely use the full 12-square range to position our work, which facilitates our design immensely.

After having picked SHIFT as the theme of our publication, our next group reunion was dedicated to deciding its format. We wanted to think a manner that we would be able to convey our theme and highlight the difference between the different works on a positive manner without having to rely solely on text.

The solution we found was creating a publication that you literally have to keep shifting around as you read. We decided that the orientation of each work would alternate, which would both create an interesting interaction with the reader and help convey the shifting perspectives and themes between each different practitioner’s section.

To accommodate to this idea, we found that it would be ideal to have the publication be square shaped, and bound with a coil. This not only makes it easier for the creation of the layout for the spreads, as it allows the page design to be rotated without messing with the positioning of the elements in it, but also more ergonomic for the shifting of the publication, since the coil allows the pages to be flipped easily to the back so that the reader can hold it one page at a time.

Furthermore, we decided to have a kind of cover page before each of the practitioner’s sessions, which will have the title Shift repeating each time, also serving as an instruction telling the reader to shift the publication to whichever side it’s oriented to Here are some notes we took illustrating the format the publication is going to take:

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We had a group tutorial with Nathan to write the editorial manifesto for our publication. Engaging with our main theme, we decided to highlight “macro shifts” and “micro shifts” within the publication. Here’s the final piece:

Editorial

Shift is a collaborative publication which brings together an interdisciplinary group of six artists and designers to showcase their individual works each exploring different perspectives on transformation. The publication represents shift on two different scales: the macro and the micro. The practitioners are all graduates of the Royal College of Art with an array of specific foci, approaches, and processes, which all reflect ‘Macro-Shifts’ when combined in dialogue on these pages. These ‘Macro-Shifts’ encompass tone, theme, aesthetic, colour, pace, mood and physicality, to embrace the diversity of direction and media within the current scope of their field.

Within their individual works, the practitioners confront ‘micro-shifts’ in the following areas:

● The quotidian through the lens of imagination

● Mass media design conventions

● Social activism concerning vulnerable populations

● Pace in a contemporary urban environment

● Storytelling and intention to elicit empathy

● Personal loss of the physicality of existence through digital transformation

Shift reveals a multifaceted response to a unified theme. Shift invites you to consider the language of visual communication, whether it is printmaking, digital collage, coding, painting, drawing, or moving image. The ultimate goal of the publication is to promote understanding which can lead to change. Shift encourages you to explore this theme of transformation and to indulge your own changing perspective within a diverse body of work.

Taking into consideration the fact that all the practitioners within the group have very different styles and bodies of work, we brainstormed to figure out meeting points between or works and delineate the possible themes and purposes that our publication could have. Here are some of the notes we took during the process:

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We realized we could use the big distinction between our works as a thematic element within the publication, and have it emphasize the range of possibilities and approaches within the field of communication. Furthermore, one common theme we managed to find between all our works was the engagement with the concept of change and transformation. We worded that as “shift”, which was very convenient, since we all thought that would work as a great name for the publication as well.

For project 6 we were to pick groups to work together and develop a collaborative publication. We were instructed to pick people whose work is similar to ours or has some kind of meeting point, but as the different products in the communication group are very different and diverse, this is a bit of a challenge.

I ended up grouped with Brooke, Teresa, Yumeng, Victoria and Pingping, which I’m happy with. Although we work with very different concepts and I find it difficult to see meeting points between our works, I think it’s a very strong group with which I have an affinity to.

We were advised to select specific jobs that each member of the group would have within the publication in order to make the work easier and more effective, and I was tasked with being the art director and graphic designer for it, which means I’m going to assemble the digital file of the publication and have the final say in design decisions. It’s going to be a lot of work but I’m happy with it.

As mentioned earlier, I created a few prints that I wasn’t entirely happy with and didn’t make into actual t-shirts:

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I do think they can be salvaged, though, and am currently trying to get the to a point that I’m happy with to later expand the collection. Here are some progress pictures and tests:

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Some of these, such as Peppa Pig browsing The Pirate Bay and Snoopy copying artwork deal more directly with the concept of piracy, and I think I can develop them to a point where I’m satisfied with the result.

In order to add the project to my portfolio, and later to the publication, I had to take product pictures of the T-shirts, which was quite a challenge as I’m not very good with a camera and the capture studio was fully booked out. I checked out a camera, a tripod and some LED lights and set a makeshift studio in my room:

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I tried taking some pictures of the T-shirt being worn but those turned out terrible since the white backdrop I had had gotten quite creased on the way home, and additionally I only had myself to model the t-shirts and was having a bit of trouble with the self timer on the camera.

The pictures of the T-shirts by themselves worked well enough though, the background area needed for those is a lot smaller than for a model picture and I could have a lot more control of the picture and actually see what’s happening on the camera.

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Even though they’re not my favourite models, I found that the T-shirts I ordered online looked the best on the pictures due to their vibrant colours, so I’m glad I got them after all.

With my limited space and lighting these don’t look too good, but it’s nothing that some editing can’t fix. I’ve found that having the T-shirts be deliberately crumpled worked a lot better than trying to make them look straight and tidy as well (which is very difficult), and its a viable solution for amateurs looking to do the same.

After some editing, I think I can use the pictures that I took:

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I wanted my T-shirts to have a sort of “brand” element to them, to look like something being commercialized by an actual company so that the obviously unlicensed prints would have an even more odd and alienating feel to them and raise some questions when interacted with. Having already decided that the © copyright symbol would be the company logo, I then created a graphic for it that could be reproduced throughout:

To keep with my concept, I used a simple emboss preset effect on Photoshop which is frequently utilized in amateur pieces. I decided to have it be yellow to create a kind of ostentatious, golden effect when paired with the emboss. I then went on to develop a tag that would be fastened to the T-shirts trying to put a bit of my thought process behind it into words:

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These are two prototypes that I created, the first one (which I had made earlier) focusing on explaining a bit of my concept, which I think didn’t work too well, and the second, which is only one example in what was meant to be a series that would have facts regarding cultural erasure as it relates to piracy from different countries.

I think in trying to concisely explain the concept through these, though, I ended limiting it a bit and losing some of the transporting effect of confusion and wonder that the T-shirts cause, so I decided to go with a different approach instead. I created two tags more closely evoking brand logos:

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The first one is meant to ironically emulate more serious, high end brand logos (although in retrospect I feel like there’s something off about how it looks and it doesn’t look very high end at all) and the second is meant to be more closely related with my approach towards designing the actual prints on the T-shirts, making use of corny and outdated design elements, which I ended up preferring.

From there, I got some more blank t-shirts and went on to heat press a new batch, this tame with the tags on. Here are some pictures of the tags:

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