This project pivots around the abstract expression of existentialism. Exploring the concept that perhaps “existence is the problem of existence”, we are nothing other than what we make of ourselves.
I interpreted existence in this project to essentially be awareness, “existence” being the awareness.
With awareness there comes thoughts which conceivably can be said to be the response one has to the reality they find themselves in.
But what if the reality one might find themselves in becomes one’s “identity”, rather than one’s own thoughts and view of themselves?
I physically depict the struggle of coming to terms with the notion that we might only truly exist within those who are aware of our existence. Thus, self-perception this “identity” idea, at a constant threat of becoming defined by what others think of us instead of what we comply to think of ourselves. Do we conform to the labels we were born with, or try to defy them, what happens when we choose the latter option?
Is our ability to think detached from context, be it the labels society has made to identify us, the stereotypes surrounding those, our misunderstandings, restraining us from true unreserved understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
I depict these human limitations, these existential questions, by symbolising the part of ourselves that allows for thought itself, the neural system, alongside “chains of thought” trapping us.
My project follows the theme of forests and what that means to me; especially through the perspective of childhood. Seeing forests through the lens of childhood it allowed me to see the magical and fantasy side of it, it also connected me back to the calming and personal connection I had to forests as a child. I used various techniques to try and achieve this; I began this with using heat tools to melt organza to create a bark like textures. I then began to experiment with other techniques such as weaving, embroidery, crochet.
I also wished to include elements from naturally foraged items from outside in real forests and so within my weaving I included sticks and twigs. It was important for me to express through textiles the importance that nature has had on my life, weather that be through the connections to my childhood or the tranquil and therapeutic side of forests as a place I feel I can go to feel calm and relaxed; I personally believe my final piece included elements of both.
I took my final piece in a rather fantasy route, including large draping sleeves and a long simplistic skirt. It felt important that I didn’t over complicate the skirt element as I didn’t want to distract from the sleeves; there is also the reasoning that overcrowding my piece would cause a busy and somewhat chaotic look; something that would go against the tranquil and therapeutic side of forests that I love.
Overall, I believe that the fantasy childhood elements of my project came out successfully and that you can see it coming through within my final work; I achieved my goal from the beginning which was to create something personal to me with the connection I have to forests and the memories I have attached to them.
In this project I explored Land And Sea. I intended to do this visually and aesthetically, being inspired by the flowing forms and rich blues, greens and blacks of the sea. I also felt it was important to include in my work, a theme of working with found materials, specifically plastics, to set an example for how we can protect the sea and surrounding environment using textiles rather than pollute it further.
A lot of my work involved attempting to utilise plastic bags, as well as the offcuts from my other materials, in a way that was beautiful and created detail that effectively creates the same atmosphere as the ocean. I was inspired by the grand, flowing forms found in the works of Iris Van Herpen the fashion designer and brand, as well as Peter Gentenaar who creates sculptures using paper pulp.
Exalted Ape Studios is an established, high quality, triple-A video game studio that is working on a new narrative based single player campaign game: Haven. Hoping to fill a void in the market for story driven narrative games, ‘Haven’ will be a medieval/fantasy open world game.
For this project, I will be initially creating a logo for the studio, demonstrating the creativity and fictional aspects of their games, in the hope of generating a strong brand identity that can be clearly associated with an artistic and creative style. Secondly, I will be creating a concept art book that contains, character designs, concept art, explanative accompanying text, and a front and back cover.
Perfection Interiors is an interior architecture and design company that has given me the mission to create them a new brand identity for their company which will soon be opening in the well-known city, Birmingham. With Perfection Interiors being placed in this location, hopefully there will be a high chance of the company getting noticed quickly by potential clients.
Perfection Interiors is a company that is known for their interior designing skills and architectural skills where they are involved in the design or renovation of an interior space which includes structural, alterations, furnishing, fixture and fitting, lighting, and colour scheme. This company works in a range of commercial, leisure and domestic settings. This company also focuses on providing variety of sketches when working alongside clients so that the client can have a visual idea of how the interior space will look like before any action is made so then alterations can also be made.
Wry Manor is an upcoming Indie game that will be exclusively released to PC and Xbox One. The independent production of games is increasing as artists and programmers have the ability to create them with more creative freedom. With gaming platforms such as Steam and GameJolt being used to market peoples’ own Indie games, the game making industry’s restrictions are declining and making and distributing games are easier than before.
This creative freedom allows for niche topics and styles to be included that may be uncommon to see in mainstream games. Within the art community, RPGs and psychological horrors are growing increasingly popular with games such as Sally Face and Undertale having millions of fans, and a large fanbase of artists on social media sites such as tumblr and twitter. Most of these games also have more of a narrative and illustrative style of gameplay and focus more on storytelling than a game with ‘win conditions’.
Wry Manor is a narrative-style horror RPG that focuses more on illustrations and animations to follow along a storyline, rather than complicated gameplay that takes time to learn to exceed at. This makes the game accessible to audiences that may appreciate this style, and welcome players of all gaming experience. The initial age rating of this game is 12 and above as games with cartoon violence and disturbing imagery are required to have this rating, and the game would be released around October / Halloween time as the game is set in the autumn season, and more horror content is popular around this time of year.
Kynite coffins is a project consisting of a variety of graphics for a start-up coffin company based in the UK which will be focusing on coffins made specifically for pets. I will be designing the coffin which will include looking at the shape, size, colour and design of the coffin and ensuring that it is suitable for a variety of pets. This is coupled with a well recognisable logo along with a website which can be used to purchase the products or provide further detailed information about it
This will be sold nationally and is intended to be released by May 2022 and came about due to there being a gap in the market for pet coffins as they are usually buried directly in ground. In addition to this, deaths of pets and loved ones are mostly viewed as a negative moment of life however, I want to be able to turn this into something positive by creating a sense of comfort and warmth trough the design/colours in order to allow customers to send off their pet in a memorable way. With the target audience being pet owners, which can include almost anyone, throughout this the products are not limited to a specific gender or age.
In this project I have designed and produced a set of graphics and designs for a company called Twisted Boba. Twisted Boba is a new company that wants to bring a bright and colourful atmosphere to the streets of London as they bring Bubble Tea to a global audience.
Twisted Boba is reinventing Bubble Tea with new and exciting flavours that have inspired the designs and branded that I have created to promote their products. These designs include producing the logo with has been created with circles and negative space to achieve the look to appear to make up to be a Bubble Tea cup. The overall logo will help to bring to life the ideas from Twisted Boba with bright and bold colours to attract an audience of all ages.
This logo will be used as the main form to be on the Bubble Tea cup along with a different design to be placed on the top of the lid that can be pierced with a straw. I have taken inspiration from being ‘twisted’ and different to the usual branding for Bubble Tea companies, and therefore created designs for the packaging to include circles from the original logo as well as acrylic fluid art inspired designs for the overall packaging of the boba, tea and syrup labels.
All the packaging labels will be used for products that will be sold and then received by the customer in the custom designed shipping box that follows the colours of Twisted Boba. I have used digital techniques to create the graphics for the designs so that there is a high quality for printing to be used on the Twisted Boba products as well as giving the designs scalability.
I have decided to pursue an album re-design and re-package for Vietnamese American musician Keshi signed with ‘Island Records, a division of UMG Recordings, Inc,’ formally known as Casey Luong, for his ‘Trilogy’ records/ EP’s: ‘skeletons’, ‘bandaids’ and ‘always’. Currently, this trilogy exists primarily on Spotify and in physical form as a vinyl that was sold for a limited amount of time as a special edition item.
My aim is to bring all three EPs together into a deluxe album in which the design will be upgraded and refined from something that is relatively minimal and basic with the additional reason being that listeners can listen to the entire trilogy in a single CD. Three different versions of this Trilogy album will be produced in the theme of each EP which will potentially increase consumers’ desire to buy the new refined album.
Bubble and Squeak go Travelling (Children’s Book Project)
The aim for this story is to encourage children to learn about embracing and learning about other cultures and countries. This story focuses on the introduction of the kittens to European cities. This particularly allows for the fact that many children haven’t been able to travel at all over the past few years and may be understandably apprehensive at the prospect of going somewhere new. I wanted to create a book that was gently reassuring, educational and above all else, fun to read.
The concept behind the story is from the inspiration of my own kittens, when we first rescued, they were very shy and the only thing that brought them out of their shell was a ribbon. They played with the ribbon as it was comforting for them. This is where the main idea for the story stemmed from and plan to use these ideas throughout my work.
The specific places features in the book were epitomised by iconic landmarks, that are real, that are recognisable. I wanted to create a series of illustrations that tell a story of the kittens on and adventure, these illustrations are collaborated within a book and justified with simple text.
