OUGD505 SB2 Initial Ideas

I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do, I knew my subject matter and I knew that my project would be focused on creating awareness rather than solving a problem.

 I went into a crit where we discussed these ideas and it really helped with my initial idea generation. We were in agreement that the idea should be centred around tackling the issue head on to generate awareness, the idea of not avoiding, breaking down stigmas and grabbing attention with related and unrelated pieces. We had a few ideas that we threw around. Such as the idea of a floor mural, card games, physical things that can be interacted with that would interrupt daily routine and grab attention, but also something that isn’t instantly associated with the topic. It was even clearer that after discussions that locations of these pieces would play a huge role in the impact they would have, where do people congregate? What am I wanting to achieve? Do I want as many people to see this as possible at a glance or do I use placement to make sure a smaller number of people see the pieces but pay more attention to them? They were all really important thing to consider, which were all really good for idea generation, the possibilities to explore were vast, it was important that I condensed these ideas down to really fine tune and develop my idea. 

With a fair few ideas from the crit I went away and tried to decide upon what I wanted to do. I decided that I wanted to take inspiration from the likes of Carrolls’ poster series and the project 84 instillation and merge the idea of the two, while incorporating my own design style. I decided I wanted a poster series that all linked together but varies in design as well as a physical piece that can be interacted with in some way, directly or indirectly. 

 I quickly sketched down a few ideas that I could play around with, just to get a little bit of a clearer picture for myself. I looked at a large floor piece that would be displayed somewhere that sees a lot of foot traffic, as that would garner the most attention. The idea of ‘not avoiding’ was something I really wanted to try and push with my work after the crit, and the floor mural further backed up the idea of ‘not avoiding,’ being a large floor instillation, the idea was by making it large enough, people could not physically avoid the piece, having to walk over it or through it to get past, meaning while there was no direct interaction with the piece, there would be indirectly, as a guaranteed acknowledgment of the piece. I was still unsure as to where I would put this piece, all I knew is that the city centre would be the best area for the foot traffic, I had to consider a more specific place and look more into where and why this was going to be. I enquired with Leeds city council about the idea and whether permission was needed but unfortunately didn’t get a response.

I thought about the possibility of stickers as well as posters and the floor piece for a wider range of mediums and the possibility of more coverage, the stickers could be placed on things like lamposts, toilet doors, walls etc, places where they’ll come into contact with people and just reach a larger crowd.