Green Pedestrian Crossing

Brand China Group Shanghai for the China Environmental Protection Foundation

The China Environmental Protection Foundation wanted to encourage people to walk more and drive less.

In this case, they use a busy pedestrian crossing where both pedestrians and drivers meet. They cover the crossing with a giant canvas of a large leafless tree. Placed on either side of the road were sponges, cushions soaked in green, environmentally friendly paint. As people walked across and stepped onto the sponges, they created green footprints. Each green footprint added to the canvas like leaves growing on a bare tree, conveying the message that walking helps create a greener environment.

Environmental protection has become people's popular topic all over the word. As result, designers want to appeal people reduce pollution in their work. However, posters could not give people a deep impression. If people could participate in this advertisement, I think it will give memorable moment for visitors.

I always want to find a way to express a change process in a paper. I think we can show it except using video. Take this case for example, people’s participation make this tree turn green. In other words, it is changing on a paper. This discovery makes me excited.

"LIGHT MUSIC" by Lis Rhodes

Among the works on display was "LIGHT MUSIC" by Lis Rhodes. I went along to have a look - and take part. “You are the Artist,”said the gallery. “You are the Artwork. You are the Audience.”

In this work, two film projectors flash black and white lines on screens at opposite ends of a smoke-filled room. You - the viewer - take part in the action and enjoy it. Moving between the flickering and flashing light beams you cast shadows - ghostly images in the fog - images from another world.

Tate Modern says "LIGHT MUSIC" is a classic example of expanded cinema. In Japan the audience sat down and watched. In Athens they got up and danced. Visitors can see how I and other people in London reacted to "LIGHT MUSIC" if they look at the photos they took in that smoke-filled room.

For a few fleeting seconds I became a huge work of art up on the walls of Tate Modern along with thousands of other people. I was interested in this way.

"Manifesto for the Book“ Irma Boom

This book is bout the Portfolio of Sheila Hicks who is an American fiber artist, she usually studied a variety if industrial methods to make her work. It’s the book’s edge that reflects her style of work.

In relation to this book, this book’s rough edge echoes the frayed edges of her work. In addition, the cover of this book doesn’t have any decoration, including the title.

I believe this book design is very successful. Firstly, this book uses their material and printing technology to give reader different feeling. Next, the choice of material accords with the content of this book. People can easy to understand some information about Sheila Hicks and her works.

As Boom says: “My books are all industrially made. What you see is that the book is not simply a book; it’s also an object. That’s what makes it special.” In fact, book is a very slow and still medium. We can select different materials and printing technology to give readers diverse tactile and visual sensations, which is one method to covey information in graphic design. We should study different medium to achieve communication.

 

My work( map): THE WAY HOME

In the past, family was a very important concept in people’s minds, and it was the center of many people’s lives. Nowadays, however, the relationship between family members is not as close as before.

I want to design a map which is the route from my home to my grandfather’s home. And I will talk about my story in this map, using my experience to enable spectators to think about a question: what factors cause them ignore their families.

To be start, there is a thing I want to mention is that my grandfather passed away suddenly on 7 January 2009. But our family members were all not there on that day. And I haven’t visited him for 1 year. I regret that I didn’t tell him that I love him and I asked myself constantly “Why did you go home to visit your grandfather? Why?” Maybe I have some factors, for example, I need to go to university to study, finish our class tasks. Sometimes I want to go shopping to release heavy study pressure. Sometimes I want to go travelling on holiday. However, these are all excuses. In fact, it just only takes me 45mins from my home to my grandfather’s home by car.

Next, I did some research on the Internet, the following reasons lead to this phenomenon that they ignore their families. Firstly, people face fierce competition and suffer from great pressure. They have to work and study hard meet the demand of the society. Secondly, there is more entertainment form available. My brother was addicted to play computer game. And he was playing games outside when my grandfather passed away.

I have a plan to do my project step by step. Firstly, I will download the route of map from my home to my grandfather’s home. And I will mark some place where I usual visit. Secondly, I will explore some methods to express this story in my project. Finally, I will draw it. But now I will solve a problem: how to express a process of change on a paper. Maybe I need to try different materials.

 

Marina Abramović Live at MoMA

3mins

12mins

18mins

29mins

164mins

From March 14 to May 31, 2010, the Museum of Modern Art held a major retrospective and performance recreation of Abramović's work, the biggest exhibition of performance art in MoMA's history. During the run of the exhibition, Abramović performed "The Artist is Present," a 736-hour and 30-minute static, silent piece, in which she sat immobile in the museum's centre, while spectators were invited to take turns sitting opposite her. A support group for the "sitters", "Sitting with Marina", was established on Facebook as was the blog "Marina Abramović made me cry". 

In fact, I didn’t find any information about the reason why spectators cried when they stared at Abramović’s eyes. And I didn’t visit this exhibition. I actually image more like a kind of film set. There is a huge square of light. And just that square, like lost in translation, in some way. It's so simple, it's like nothing there. It's just artist sitting like mountain. Looking you in the eyes, people don't understand that the hardest thing is to actually do something which is close to nothing. There is no story, any more to tell.

The most important point is communication in design. But sometimes we can’t use our work to communicate with spectators directly, and we need talk about some background about our work to audiences. However, Abramović did nothing else but communicating in how they were breathing or other tiny things with visitors. Therefore, we should explore this question how to achieve exchange of ideas in design.

QMary：finding your way through borders and filters

In this design, it associates with map and board game to express its theme. It tracks border policy, labor conditions on campus, resistance movements, and helps us re-orient ourselves within British university. In addition, this map was inspired by all those who resist the border, our experiences of education and our migrations from various locations on and off it.

In analyzing this work, there are plenty of words, except green line. Meanwhile, this route is very clearly and the color is so striking. However, if we put the rule of game and the introduction of characters on the back of this page, it will be more perfect.

In my opinion, evaluating whether the work succeeds is communicating the message effectively. It is very important to interact with audiences in a design. People will get the type of communication they need though playing this game. In fact, people can have deep impression about some information, if they experience it. I like this work due to this point.

All in all, we can use different ways to tell a story, such as game, maze, illustration, poster and so on. We must explore different medium and find best fit way to convey our theme.

London transport_Traffic Problem

 

Victor Galbraith, 1959

<The better way is to stagger your working hours>

Another approach to reducing peak traffic urged passengers to stagger their working hours. Galbraith uses caricature form to spread this message simply, using an eye-catching and bold design. And the logo of London underground replaces tires, which enable people easy to understand the theme of poster.

William Kerridge Haselden, 1920

<Traffic>

As commuter numbers increased throughout the 1920s, so did overcrowding during peak travel times. This poster reminds passengers to travel at off-peak times where possible. In addition, Haselden also uses illustration to show this traffic situation.

Aldo Cosomati, 1927

<The pulse of London life>

This poster presents the fluctuating numbers of passengers each day on London's Underground and Bus. Red and blue stand for the London’s bus and underground respectively. What’s more, times and causes of peak traffic are highlighted, encouraging passengers to reassess their journey.

From above three posters, I feel that caricature form is fantastic way in design, which is amusing and makes people receive information rapidly. Furthermore, designers’ inspiration usually comes from their lives and experience (including traffic problem). Maybe designs can’t solve that question, but they can arouse people’s concern. For example, people just know that they caught by traffic jams, but they are not realized that the important reason which leads to traffic jam is they perversely likes to travel at the same moment.