New blogs

Ive spent the morning looking at other peoples blogs and have discovered a few that i will definatly be adding to my site list for you to look at. One one particular blog, Design for mankind, i found 2 more blogs that i really like the look of and one particular blogger even had an issue of frankie in her post (which was a daily for Design for mankind). I don't want to steal content from someones blog so i will just say that there is some interesting content on Design for mankind and i think you should check it out (in particular the what the world eats photo essay). In reflection on other peoples blogs i noticed how little of my own designs/ideas i have been posting so to remedy this i will show you a couple of things from the 'This & That' project i just completed.


This image is a representation of the office that i had designed in its final position. I thought for a long time about where to put my office...at first i thought somewhere like The botanic gardens or Kelvingrove Park but decided that they were too obvious. Being obvious is one of the things that i really tried to avoid whilst thinking up concepts for this design but in the presentation to Drew and Patrick i felt like i was being criticised for being to vaugue. In particular the cut away sections in the office cell and the bathroom, drew likened it to pee stained walls...oh dear.

In the end i decided that the best place to put the Office was on a disused plot of land just behind a recycling plant. I suggested that the plot could be planted with flowers that bees are attracted too that way both areas of the design will have been covered.

Tidy and inspire

The weather has been really nice recently, and nice weather always makes me feel in the mood to do some organising and to tidy....and i suppose it is a good idea to clean up all the mess i made from the last project. I really didn't realise how much mess i could make in such a short time, i think i have surpassed any mess ive ever made before!


Why does my room seem messy still even after i cleaned it? I guess the room itself doesn't have a very 'clean' vibe at all just because its student halls! I can't wait to move into the other flat....not long to go now! Me, Heather and Maeve decided on who has what room recently so im just thinking now about how to decorate it...so far im thinking the colours Grey, White and Green. so i'll have to start looking out for things to put into my room...a branch for sure....hmm

Today i was reflecting on some designers that i researched for my project and one in particular captured my imagination from the start and that is work by designer Gareth Neal. His work looks at positive and negative space and the exploration of organic forms. Out of all of his pieces i found his Block 2: Side table interested me the most and his concept spaces are great too.

The beautiful simplicity in this side table Is great! I wonder how he made it....looks like it was a block of oak sawn back piece by piece but...that would take so long and its so detailed if he did do it that way then i am seriously impressed. This summer i have to make some furniture...what to do, what to do...

Grades and birthday celebrations

Today i had my feedback session with my H&C tutor Bruce Peter a little too early for me in the morning when you take into account the loud German people that live in a flat just across for me...especially when they sing great songs really really badly! Im sure i mentioned in a previous post that i was incredibly nervous for my presentation AND in the grade for the essay that i did in term 2, turns out i had no reason at all to feel that way.

For my presentation i got an A4 grade, which really surprised me...its the first A grade i have got through the entirety of my education and makes its seems that i really have decided to come to the right place? Something must be making me work hard enough to get that grade, i feel even more so now that im in the right place.For my essay i was given a B2 which im really happy about especially because i thought it was terrible, i just wish i could of looked at a few more sources.

For each piece of H&C work you get a feedback sheet and from what i can tell it looks like im making the same sort of 'mistakes' in whatever i write. Bruce wrote "There are some places where the insertion of a few more well chosen words would have made a big difference to the clarity of your arguments" being specific and precise for me when im writing is something i guess i will just have to work on...although im not sure how to practice this.

---

As well as getting my H&C grades back today it was the birthday of my friend Amelia she is turned 19 (i feel a little too old) so to celebrate her flatmates made her a fishy breakfast, as part of tradition, and i came over straight after my feedback session to give her my present/card and wish her well. We continued the celebrations by having lunch at the wee Curry shop needless to say it was delicious! and cheap too. Afterwards we waited around for a while then went to the Glasgow Film Theater to see Caramel.



The photography in this film was amazing, and worth seeing for that alone. But if your one for fast moving storyline and action scenes i don't think that you would enjoy it. Id love to take some pictures from scenes in this film!

Work is finish

Phew, well i have now officially finished all work in relation to my first year at the GSA. Its a funny feeling a mixture of relief and apprehension in regards to what grades i will get for this term in H&C and in Design.

The meeting that i was talking about in my last post went ok although i can't help feeling like the tutor brushed me off a little bit as i was the last person to present my work one tutor condensed the evaluation of my work down into one word 'Hexagon'. Personally i thought that the mid term review was very un-helpful but maybe i just didn't understand what she was trying to get at, also the fact that the Interiors tutor wasn't even in our review kind of annoyed me. Just recently i had my final review with the head of interior design, i don't think that went very well either.

I don't know what it is but every time i have a review i lose my vocabulary and i can't describe very well why i did certain things in my design. This didn't help very much when i tried to defend why i decided to put vertical recycled plastic board cladding on the majority of the walls inside my portable office. I put my defenses up and suggested that 'it was essential to the design concept and that it was inspired by the construction of a beehive' but after i knew i could of worded it better adding something like 'i didn't want the inside to be a complete carbon copy of the outside, there needed to be some kind of change in finish to communicate the change of atmosphere. Submergence in a recycled material with an emphasis on height and 'natural' materials'. If only i could say those things on the spot...

Anyway, today with the handing in of my design concept sketchbook, i have no more work to do and only feedback sessions to attend so technically i have 4 months of free time to do what i like with me moving back to Glasgow from Milton Keynes Mid-late August. I really wanted to get a picture of my work on the wall for the future (and for this blog) but i wasn't allowed into the studio because of the assessments so i (and you) will have to wait until next week when i get my grade.

Nerves

Tomorrow i have the presentation that i was telling you about and im very nervous. So instead of going out i have decided to stay in and try to get my head around what i am going to say to the group. Saying this, today i was the audience to some students from textiles and the talk was very informal and relaxed so i don't think that i have much to worry about at all, i just need to pin down a few things.

When i was doing some research on designers and artists that i feel could influence the final design of my office i came across an artist called Dan McCarthy who, although he has absolutely no relevance to my project, captured my imagination immediately. Id actually seen some of his work before but i can't exactly remember where from maybe through the days when i used to sit on deviant art for hours and trawl through art works so its great to find the images again.


His work seems to speak to me in some way, maybe because of my morbid fascination couple with that of anatomy and the child hood interest of dinosaurs! For the first time i have considered investing...well purchasing a print of his not only because i feel that its completely out of my imitation range but i think to have a print bought from him would be really fulfilling.

There isn't anything about him on his Website only a huge selection of his prints, paintings, drawings and clothing. $47 for a 25"x19" print...i am sooooo tempted.

celebration and concentration

Work on my project has jumped forward in leaps and bounds over the past week or so and considering i have a presentation soon based on the work that i am doing at the moment that can be nothing but a good thing. I had a slump a couple of days ago when i was sat staring into a floor plan, the realisation that this scenario would happen for the rest of my life (staring into floorplans and considering space planning etc) and it scared me a little bit.

I had a small gathering at my flat to celebrate mine and Maeves Birthday and it was a great success and turned out to be Horrific. I enjoyed everyones costumes to the maximum but the mess the next morning was a little terrorfying in itself. I got some interesting presents from my friends including, incense, a snail shell, books from a book fair and some nice chopsticks.

The best present though had to be having fun with my friends (even if there were a few certain someones missing from the group) so...yeah that was soppy but its true!

The H&C presentation went fine, i was terribly nervous but i managed to calm myself by concentrating as hard as possible on the people that went before me. Things like listening to there tone, speed of speech and the actual substance of the presentation helped to center me so when it came to my turn i somehow did the whole talk without stuttering or messing up what i wanted to say...even if it did feel like my voice was being stolen away from me at the beginning. The Lecturer commented on how well paced my presentation was, well pronounced and something else. I was a little too high on adrenaline to take it all in if im honest! I won't say that im looking forward to the next presentation...but im certainly prepared for it.

NOTE- I made this draft on the night of the party!