Time Planning

Time Planning or 'Time to Daydream'

  Time planning is an extremely useful and important skill to have. It's something that once in the habit of, can save you a lot of time and effort and can make room for more things you WANT to do instead of things you HAVE to.

  We were asked to form our own weekly timetable full of all the things that fill up our time, most of which is uni work and blogging.

Writing it out in an organised manor allows you to understand where all your time goes and how you can manage it more efficiently.


 There are a number of applications on iPhone and iMac that can really help with time planning and meeting deadlines etc.

One of the more well known time planning applications is Evernote. Their slogan reading "Your life's work. For everything you'll do, Evernote is the workplace to get it done".


Evernote is an application that aims to help users have everything they need all on one place.

Personally I am not a fan of this application. It seems a bit too basic and does not offer anything more than my smartphone device. There are a couple of options to upgrade for a certain price, however I don't see why you'd pay for an app when there are others out there that will do the same thing for free.

The app also isn't very well laid out and is slightly confusing as well as being basic.

Being a student, I am looking to avoid paying for as much as I can so an app like this that doesn't offer enough unless you pay a monthly fee isn't worth my time or money.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Yorkshire Sculpture Park is an open-air gallery in West Yorkshire showing work by British and international artists including Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. The park has a forever changing collection of work, however some installations and sculptures are permanent to the open-area.

We were set a task of redesigning the symbol or logo for the sculpture park (pictured above). To do this we are limited to making a simple symbol that works well next to the title of the park. This symbol must be influenced by the park and the work within it.

I have approached this brief by first putting together a selection of photos and first-hand sketches of the sculptures, buildings and surrounding area. I wanted to gather as much info about the park as i could, both visually and factual, before I started to produce symbol ideas. 

I was blown away by the collection of sculptures around the park. With work from such amazing artists and sculptures, with the surrounding area combined, it makes for a spectacular experience and a hugely influential and beneficial source of research. 

One thing that grabbed my attention in particular however was not the sculptures but one of the buildings housing artist collections. This building is a modern chic design built with steel, glass and wood panels. It's beautifully elegant and clean and makes for a perfect gallery space. I've decided to use the image on the right as a starting point for one of my symbols, taking some of the lines and textures and simplifying it into a shape.

Gallery building 

Reflective Practice

Be curious & have wonder.

  We have been asked to explore all platforms, sources and blogs from which we can gather our information, inspiration and experimentation ideas. There are a lot more sources of info than just blogs, websites and books. Its hugely important to explore a wide range of investigative research and will help me in developing my ideas further and giving my work more depth in terms of context, purpose, influences, etc.

1. Ted talks

2. Do lectures

3. The chicken shed 

4. Instagram

5. Medium

6. DesignTAXI

7. Another

8. Good type

9. Pinterest

10. Dazed & confused

  Above is a list of 10 useful sources of investigation and creative references. Sources like these are a great place to start when looking for ideas and influences. Ted talks have a huge range of lectures available to watch online, covering every aspect of every topic of art & design. 

  TED Talks 

  I was introduced to TED Talks during my foundation year last year. We were advised to watch many of the talks during our projects as they are hugely helpful in understanding things that I have only recently been introduced to. The site contains a huge variety of talks by people in every aspect of art & design.
 
  Instagram is a quick and easy way of investigation. I use this app on a daily basis already and can make it a lot more relevant and beneficial to my work as well as my social life by following artists and designers I like and seeing the work of fellow design students.

Mike Perry's Instagram blog is "an explosion of colour" and includes amazing examples of hand crafted type. I found out about this designer through watching comedy central. Mike Perry is responsible for graphics on the T'V channel for various programmes such as Broad City.

Timothy Goodman's page is a huge hub of inspiration. I particularly admire his playful use of colour. His work is extremely attention grabbing and makes for an exciting blog.

  

  Goodtype is an amazing website that displays a range of images to do with type. There is a huge amount of visual research and stimulants that make for a great creative reference.

  The chicken shed is another website full of interesting blogs by artists and designers. Topics range from typical to obscure and make for a good influence for both my work and my blog writing.

  

 Do lectures is similar to Ted talks and is also a great place to find info on topics and answers to questions I need answering. 

  Pinterest, similar to Instagram, is a site where people upload all sorts of examples of art and design. Its an excellent place to look for inspiration as you can find images relevant to anything and everything. With a search bar, it's extremely easy to use and also allows you to make your own Pinterest blog page where you can upload examples of your own work as well as other peoples work that you have come across elsewhere. This creates a hub for all of your research and relating work where other people can view and make comments on.

  Dazed & Confused 

DesignTAXI

  I often refer to DesignTAXI for reading articles and news blogs. The site is less about imagery and aesthetics and more about text and content. It's good for improving my blog writing and also for keeping up to date with the industry. The text ranges from Architecture, Social Media and even Humour. I even refer to this site when I'm trying to escape doing work as it makes for a perfect procrastination website that will keep me interested for hours.

 In my opinion, the best place to start my research for a project brief starts with primary research. For example, for my rebranding project, I visited the shop of which i was rebranding the logo (Lush). This gave me first hand experience of the shop and gave me a number of ideas on where to start and what to focus on. After this primary research, I refer to the 10 resources listed above, as well as other sources online. The internet is a great place to find designer influences and other inspiration. Other sources include books and magazines. However I find that it is easier to find relevant info on the web.