http://kaolinek.tumblr.com/

A bored Friday made more interesting by a ‘hey I’ll...

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 13:21:22 -0400

A bored Friday made more interesting by a ‘hey I’ll sketch anyone who RTs’ tweet. I get to practise pace, and people get a bit of joy out of their assumably, equally boring Friday on twitter.

The best camera is the one you have on you. Words can not...

Thu, 31 May 2012 06:51:44 -0400

The best camera is the one you have on you. Words can not express how much I am enjoying having a phone with a camera. I’ve even given in to instagram and its cheesy filters. And I see pictures everywhere it’s a bit mad - before I had to just ignore them which must have been hard for my.. I don’t know.

I’ve never been a paperfolder, but never has got to end at...

Thu, 31 May 2012 06:42:24 -0400

I’ve never been a paperfolder, but never has got to end at some point.

I’ve also never gotten the point of concertinas (what are they??), but allow me to indulge and quote myself: “never has got to end at some point”.

So here you have it. A folded concertina full of cranes and lines.. And it’s surprisingly fun to flip through so maybe that is the true point of concertinas who knows.

These weeks have just been insane. I’m loving the buzz at...

Mon, 28 May 2012 19:18:17 -0400

These weeks have just been insane.

I’m loving the buzz at uni, and staying till late and all - but right now, all I can think of is more than 4 hours of sleep. TOMORROW it’s going to happen - handing in our 100 outcomes. Realised that I’m missing ten so I quickly did some patterns. When late, always do patterns.

We really are! This studio visit was great! mahdisnikou: It’s...

Sun, 27 May 2012 11:14:31 -0400

We really are! This studio visit was great!

mahdisnikou:

It’s Nice That studio visit

We are the luckiest students in the world for having these opportunities to meet such amazing people during our course! It was one of the most inspirational useful meeting I’ve ever had in my life! These people work harder than I thought.They started from the simplest stage to build their studio and I have to say I’m so proud to have this chance to meet them and listen to their stories. Very inspirational relaxing evening at It’s Nice That studio. They also gave us one of the magazine that they’ve published which is very nice of them :)

Remember those bird-shapes I had the other day? I spent this...

Mon, 21 May 2012 17:27:50 -0400

Remember those bird-shapes I had the other day?

I spent this afternoon riso-printing them. Wasn’t sure how it was going to work out as it was a bit of a gamble creating something 3D out of two layers. The way a risograph printer works is much like screen printing - only faster and bitmapped. It makes a stencil of your black and white image and prints it in whatever colour is on the cartridge roll - which you then change and print a different coloured layer on top. Quite pleased with the outcome, conceptually it’s been through a nice process: from cut out pieces of papers, to photographs, to drawings and eventually to print.

And I should try and focus on something new, I’m falling in love with the riso to the point where I want to test so many things on it instead of doing coursework..

Who needs a mouse anyway?!

Mon, 21 May 2012 16:31:41 -0400

Who needs a mouse anyway?!:

annainlondon:

This looks aaaawesome

A very arts and crafty evening. Got to use my blow pens just...

Sun, 20 May 2012 18:19:00 -0400

A very arts and crafty evening. Got to use my blow pens just like when I was five. For those of you who are wondering - blowpens are like DIY grafitti pens for kids - you blow in them and get the Windows 95’ paint spraytool effect. Anyway.. Still trying to push for those hundred outcomes with the theme ‘THE CITY’.

So now I’ve got these shapes.. I’ve drawn them based...

Sat, 19 May 2012 18:09:00 -0400

So now I’ve got these shapes.. I’ve drawn them based on one model from different angles, and the layers are riso-ready. I just need to figure out what to do with them. Tomorrow I’ll try and play around a bit more, and see what they’d look like combined or on one plane.

So.. No these are not birds. I’m working with shapes,...

Sat, 19 May 2012 16:29:26 -0400

So.. No these are not birds. I’m working with shapes, trying to extract 3D shapes to use in a 3-layer riso print. Testing whether pacity and overlayed shapes can produce a dimension or not - time will tell..

This is a summary post

Fri, 18 May 2012 04:52:00 -0400

So.. As you might know by now I start most of my blogposts with a ‘so’. So this won’t be an exception.

I’m going to reflect on my first year as a graphic communication student at LCC - can’t believe it’s already coming to an end. Guess they weren’t lying when they told us on our first day that time would FLY and we should make the most of it.

One of our first task was actually starting a blog - and keeping it updated throughout the year, formally till today the 18th of May. It’s a really good way of forcing people into it, it takes time to learn to enjoy blogging, but at this stage I think most of us have come to enjoy it and intend to continue. Having your own place to curate what you find or make and reflect on it is really useful and strangely pleasing.

The first weeks of the first term we had various workshops - many of the practical. I must admit I didn’t always feel that challenged and they were quite basic. But looking back at it, it was nice to have a bit of a slow start, and I produced some okay things - like this worm-in-apple-print. Pauls text and image workshop was really good, and marked the beginning of me looking differently at type and layout - something I’m definitely less scared of and more intrigued by today.

To counter-balance the slow first weeks I kept myself busy with other things. At some point Campusmoviefest visited uni and I took advantage of the free equipment and made a short film in a few days, called wednesday we play with fire. I genuinely think it was quite a strong little film, but it didn’t get on to the next round - I think it was too violent and real *shrugs* Oh well.

One of the highlights of the first term was definitely getting the opportunity to go to TYPO-london. My first ever conference, packed with super interesting talks by famous people in the industry I’d never heard of but now saw live. ChipKidd (above) being one of my highlights. It was a lot to take in at once, but I learned more than I realise, I think. The best part (and this is always my best part of anything) was making friends with DGC people from different years, it’s been really helpful being able to get their advice and see what they’re up to and so on. I also took part in the Visualizing marathon with three others from our course, and we produced our first ever infographic in 24 hours - Whose Olympics is it anyway?

The first ‘real’ project was the Graphic Design Fundamentals project aka GDF. Hello client and target audience, hello inDesign and HELLO first of many PDFs. All things we’re familiar with now, but back then they were new concepts. I chose to kill two stones with one bird (yes) and combine the project with one of the YCN briefs - sneakily making Feel Good Juice company fit in to our client sector: ‘health and wellbeing’. I got away with it, but kept being pestered about posting something of it on my blog - something I couldn’t do as the YCN deadline was in March and we were not allowed to share it before then. So, sorry. There you have it.

Our first project in the new year was a Mapping project. We had to choose between one of two areas of the design industry that interested us, and come up with a question and map out our finding somehow. Art Direction has always been something I thought I might want to go into later, so this was a good opportunity to define what it really entails. My question was something along the lines of ‘which principles of Storytelling can be implemented to art direction’, and the final outcome was a time-based piece of advice for designers.

As a result of this mapping project I’ve found myself keeping narratives in mind whenever I design.

Alongside course-work I decided to respond to one of the D&AD briefs - in the social design category. It was a really last minute decision and the execution was so-so, but I was lucky enough to win a ‘best of year’ - proving that good storytelling of an insight-based idea really works.

The cool thing about FdA’s is that we get to work on projects directly with the industry. Everyone really upped their game, when we got the first industry-set briefs. Because each project had limited space, the sign-up morning was utter madness. I was hoping to do a project with LBi, but I was a nano-second too late. BERG London turned out to be a really exciting project though, and we got to go crazy on ideas by imagining how future technologies might merge in the future. My final outcome ‘Altered Reflection’ - was crazy, yes but not impossible I believe. I recently went to a tech-conference in Amsterdam and realised that all our ideas weren’t so far of after all. In fact, I think we might be a head of things which is quite exciting.. One of the key speakers - Mark Randall from Adobe really inspired me to aim for magic when you’re coming up with ideas.

At the moment we’re busy with our final major project - we have to create 100 outcomes and make a catalogue showing the ten best. The theme is ‘The City’, and I’ve been experimenting with layers, grids, and visualising sound. Although it’s hectic I’m really enjoying the freedom to experiment in this project and an excuse to try out new techniques. Below is my first attempt at a risograph print - RISO being my new favourite machine of all time.

Reflecting upon my first year as a graphic communication student I’ve learned a LOT. It has kinda creeped up on me lately, and I’ve realised I see the world differently. Although no one ever tells us “this is good design” or “this is bad”, the constant exposure to visual solutions and all the in-between talks with mates or discussions with tutors really has an impact on how you see design. It’s no secret that I love tools in general, but some of the more abstract tools i.e for idea generation must be on the top list of useful tools I’ve learned this year. I’m thrilled by the fact that you can actually work as an ideas-person. I wasn’t aware of that before, it’s amazing. Next up is hustling an internship over the summer and hopefully act as a useful tool to someone, somewhere.

Heey! What a fine day with actual, physical outcomes for a...

Thu, 17 May 2012 17:36:49 -0400

Heey! What a fine day with actual, physical outcomes for a change. Spent the morning doing a quick bookbinding workshop with David Sims, and I must say I’ve fallen a tiny bit in love with something I’ve proclaimed to be not-so-interested in. Bookbinding is so pleasing, I’m now super keen to experiment with my catalogue next week *insert excited grin and cheesy thumbs up and everything*

But but.. There’s more. Elvira and I have discovered the BEAST of all machines - the RISOGRAPH PRINTER. Don’t let the giant cartridges intimidate you - this piece of printer is STUPENDOUS. You print one colour at a time as it makes a stencil inside, making it super fast and good for doing multiple prints. Aaah. All I want to do now is make more riso-prints - let’s see how I can fit it in to as many of our 100 outcomes as possible.

Playing around with lines, extending them and extracting shapes....

Mon, 14 May 2012 17:47:12 -0400

Playing around with lines, extending them and extracting shapes. Not sure how it’d ever change the world, but I do really really really like cranes (and tools but that’s a different story)

Snippets of conversations I’m trying to work with type,...

Sun, 13 May 2012 11:08:04 -0400

Snippets of conversations

I’m trying to work with type, visualising those bits of conversations you hear when people walk past

Yes I did just make another tumblr. I’ll take a picture of...

Sat, 12 May 2012 06:29:18 -0400

Yes I did just make another tumblr. I’ll take a picture of london every day so you can check the weather before you leave your basement room ;)

londonlookslikethistoday:

Saturday 12th May

Okay so this is a bit autistic, I know. But it’s a map of...

Thu, 10 May 2012 17:50:27 -0400

Okay so this is a bit autistic, I know. But it’s a map of London made up by my stories from the different areas. Thinking of screen-printing it..

Mapping London. This part of london is where I mostly find...

Thu, 10 May 2012 17:43:39 -0400

Mapping London. This part of london is where I mostly find myself.. It’s more or less accurate. Looking at a map and sketching it down was quite nostalgic for me as we had to do it so often in primary school. Whenever we learnt about a new country or part of the world we always had to trace their maps.

Each area of this maps have words and names associated with that area. It’s made me realise that cycling has done me good in that I’ve been to most of these places and I know where they’re placed in relation to each other. Oh but I love maps

The next few weeks I’m going to be exploring the theme...

Thu, 10 May 2012 17:37:12 -0400

The next few weeks I’m going to be exploring the theme ‘THE CITY’. Yesterday I was working with a map of my ideal city- with all the streets that I’d love to have around me from various places around the world. You’ll find streets from Cape Town, Denmark, Berlin, Mumbai and Beijing and of course NYC. The final outcome kind of looks like a detached heart, which is quite relevant as these are streets with real people on them that I miss a lot.

Also, like it how my hackney estate is taller than any building on manhattan?

Playing around with my view and creating some magical sky...

Mon, 07 May 2012 17:41:35 -0400

Playing around with my view and creating some magical sky cities

The Next Web 2012 - recap

Mon, 07 May 2012 12:32:23 -0400

I was lucky enough to get given tickets to The Next Web conference in Amsterdam a few weeks ago. Carlsberg had 3 extra tickets, and when someone pulled out @Daria asked me if I was still interested. Uhm YES please :) So although the event was the following day, I managed to sort out flights, accommodation etc - you gotta just jump on things like this when they happen.

The Next Web or TNW as it’s commonly referred to is one of the top 15 most influential blogs on the internet and receives more than 6 million monthly page views. They manage several initiatives focused on international technology news, business and culture.

The TNW conference is the biggest tech event in Europe, so needless to say I was stoked to go. Apart from the bonus of making new friends - I’m going to run through my personal highlights of the event in the next couple of blog posts.