Loosing my marbles

Continuing on with the Collection 100 brief, the next part was to make our own brief based on our inital collection (mine being toys). I have to produce something relating to product & packaging, product & promotion or product & distribution. Whatever I create must include 100 in some way. I thought about what part of my collection I could use, some of my ideas were...

• A timeline of 100 years of 100 toys
• 100 LEGO sets
• 100 different Crayola wax crayons in 100 colours

PICTURE OF SKETCHBOOK

In a chat with Amber I changed my direction to focus on marbles for many reasons, such as unable to obtain 100 crayons, unable to find timeline of 100 years of toys and other classmates doing something similar with LEGO. I began researching into marbles and found there are so many diffrent types, but these days they don't seem to be aimed at children as a toy. When on the search for 100 marbles in Leeds, I came across 1 market stall to have any marbles, and they were only cats-eyes... pretty standard in my opinion in comparison to others you can get.

I began to think about what I could do with these marbles and decided upon my brief to be aimed at children (5-11 years) and to promote marbles as a toy again. I thought about an advertisement as marbles are a moving toy... they roll everywhere! A book would be too static for my subject. Also what 7 year old would read a book on marbles? Very few I would guess. Stop motion animation has always been something I have wanted to explore and I really think this would be an ideal opportunity. After my Quick Time workshop I cracked on with making a basic stop motion... pretty much documenting my 100 cats-eyes marbles.

QUICKTIME VIDEO

This turned out pretty poor quality but I think the idea worked ok. I bought some nicer marbles to use for my final pice and attempted the same thing. This one includes greater variety including more colours and sizes and think this would keep the attention and be more exciting for a child viewing my animation.

I also tried to create a large marble out my 100 cats-eyes marbles. I positioned all the cats-eyes to go round in a circle, hopefully to create more of an effect. Unfortunately it doesn't appear rounded enough on all sides to look like a marble. I reckon I would need alot more marbles to create the impression from afar of a huge marble.

I created a design direction board to show in a crit and it went down pretty well. I also got some advise on stop animations to research, I aim to make a stop motion which lasts 100 seconds and consists of 10 sequences. Each sequence will be 10 seconds long and will involve 100 marbles. The whole thing will run and 10 frames per second. This means it will require 1000 frames to make he entire animation! I will also need to design packaging for my animation which will probably be on a DVD but I am looking into other possibilities... maybe a USB? I would like the packaging to be interesting and related to the product (animation). It would be really nice if I could make the packaging interactive aswell.

Final Cut and QuickTime

Book Binding

I've had a workshop this morning into Book Binding and I really enjoyed it. I hope to go back for a few drop-in sessions to develop my skills so that I can use them in future briefs.

Saddle stitching

1. Fold paper in half. 2. Make holes along fold (centre, right, left) but no too near the edges of the paper. 3. Use double thickness of string on needle to go through outside centre hole, then right and left and finally through centre again. Image 1. 4. Cut string and tie. 5. Trim edges so clean and sharp. Image 2. 6. Add corners by using a cutting machine if preferred. Finished! Image 3.

Japanese binding

1. Get paper correct size and trimmed clean before starting to bind. 2. Create holes along the top of book, leaving some space at very top. 3. Start stitching halfway through book and use a method going across and then over. (Image 1). 4. Tie the knot inside the book at original stating point so it is hidden 5. Finished! (Image 2).

Concertina with cover
1. Score a long piece of card alternatively to create a concertina effect. 2. Ensure you have made a scored spine to encase the concertina. 3. Using thick card, creat a templat for the covering and stick to material. (Image 1). 4. Fold edges up and around the card. 5. Glue the concertina into the covering. (Image 2). 6. Finished! (Image 3).

OUGD104 - Visual Language (17.11.09)

I am rubbish at English Language... I'm not too good at forming understandable sentances, let alone understanding the structure. Lets hope this helps.

NOUN an object
The class write with the pen quickly

ADJECTIVE a describing word

The class write with the pen quickly


PRONOUN the person or group which can replace any object

They write with the pen quickly

VERB a doing word

The class write with the pen quickly

PERSONAL PRONOUN he/she/it

OBJECTIVE PERSONAL PRONOUN us/we/me

Bring the cat to the park (noun)

Bring the cat to us (objective personal pronoun)

FIRST PERSON SINGULAR

I am going to the zoo

FIRST PERSON PLURAL

We are going to the zoo

SECOND PERSON SINGULAR/PLURAL

You are going to the zoo

THIRD PERSON SINGULAR

It/he/she is going to the zoo

THIRD PERSON PLURAL

We are going to the zoo

THIRD PERSON OBJECTIVE PERSONAL PRONOUN

One does not like the zoo

Phew!

I have also leant about condensing paragraphs into the size of a tweet or text (160 characters) whilst still keeping the most important information.

There are good bands in Leeds with great DIY promoters around the City. Put on your own gigs to see bands for free and get to know the scene! Here are some tips 160

Impress your flatmates with cocktail skills ranging from £16-£25. Reform, Boutique, Mojo, Alea Casino and Revolution Electric Press all offer cocktail classes! 160

A domestic snake of 20 years stopped eating... The vet put the snake down as it was found to be starving and stretching itself to suffocate and eat its owner! 158

Toys x100

Produce a body of workthat investigates 100 by collecting 100 facts, opinions and objects on a specific content. Deliver good quality research demonstrating an appropriate broad range of approaches to visual and conceptual enquiry.

I decided upon toys as I find them interesting, and especially how they have changed over time, both in appearance by new materials and also by interactivity by new technologies.

Facts
For my 100 facts I decided to use the internet as my source of information as there is so much available on the web and also items are updated daily, whereas books are created for longevity and may include out of date facts. I used a variety of websites to collect my facts about toys.

• Play-Doh was originally used as wallpaper cleaner.
• It requires 63 feet of wire to make a Slinky.
• Barbies real name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
• There are 1,929,770,126,028,800 possible colour combinations on a Rubik's Cube.
• Twister has sold more than 22million.
• The original Mr Potato Head came with eyes, noses, mouths and ears... but no potato.
• Mattel sell around 1.5million Barbie's a week, equating to 2 per second.

Opinions
I created a Questionnaire to collect my opinions with the intention that people would express their views on set questions such as wooden vs plastic. My questionnaire had 6 questions and i received 46 responses. The opinions gathered were useful as they presented toys which I hadn't though about including.

• Plastic toys tend to be more appealing to kids.
• Wooden toys are probably more durable.
• All toys should be fun.
• When I was little I wanted one of those small electronially powered cars you could sit in and control yourself.
• Some toys are educational without realising it, like Lego.
• Wooden toys remind me of Victorian times.

Objects
The objects were quite tricky to collect as I don't know many people who had children or toys from their childhood and also I was not allowed to take pictures in some shops. I raided the loft and found a load of my brothers old toys and asked others to let me borrow if they had any. I intended to take pictures of all my images in he same location, for better comparison and so they look better visually as a collection. However, with some object I was unable to do this.

I got some feedback on my collection which was pretty positive. It was suggested that I could gather more opinions, visit car boot sales and also look in charity shops. It was also suggested that I could look into how toys were advertised compared to now and think that could be quite interesting. I can use a lot of categories for my collection including toys for girls/boys/unisex, plastic/wooden, modern/old, colour, scale and in a timeline.

OUGD104 - Photography (15.12.09)

I have developed upon last weeks work and ...

- Red chemisty