Art Foundation Final Exhibition (FMP #4)

So it's all over. One year (or 9 months if you want to get technical) of blood, sweat, tears, sweat, stress, hard work, sweat and late nights. Before I started my art foundation, I was something of a lost confused soul, watching all of my friends go off to uni but having little idea of which path in art and design I wanted to take myself. Twelve months on, I can now whole heartedly say that a foundation course was the best thing I could have possibly done for myself and my future. I have never worked so hard and created so much work in such a short space of time, or developed my creative capabilities in such a profound way. 

With the end of the year comes the final exhibition. This is the culmination of everything from the year, but in particular the ten week final major project. I've done a few posts on my FMP previously which I will link here, here and here. The foundation exhibition goes up alongside all of the degree shows at Manchester School of Art and is ultimately a big part of the final grade. 

On the surface, my FMP has stayed consistent to my original subject as experimenting with letterforms has been central throughout the ten weeks. However, discovering textiles was a defining turning point for me and what I initially intended to be a short research test turned into a change of direction. From that point onwards, the craft, process and materials became key. I taught myself how to knit and crochet and my focus changed from illustrating phrases with typography onto testing, exploring and developing the potential of traditional textiles crafts in the context of graphic design and typography.

After weeks of testing, developing, refining and many balls of wool later, I have created one piece to showcase what I have been working on in my FMP. I will insert a few photographs but as a general outline, my final show is a wall piece in which I have recreated the definition of 'TYPOGRAPHY' with crochet and knitted letters, replicating the links, fonts and punctuation of online dictionaries...

I am really genuinely happy with how my exhibition has turned out. As a huge perfectionist it was difficult to let go of the fact that this is a handmade piece of graphic design, and so imperfections are necessary to its character. The 'homemade' element is, I hope, a part of the charm. It's been a labour of love to bring this exhibition to life and I feel at a bit of a loss now that its all over!

On Monday I handed in all of my supporting work from the year, my portfolio, sketchbooks and artist research for marking over the next couple of weeks. After this time the Manchester School of Art degree show will open to the public (which I will do a little post on with more details), so essentially I am finished for the summer now. I have loved every single minute of being in a creative environment this year, I have met such amazingly talented friends and tutors and I truly wish I could do it all over again.

Now though, it's time for some chill time...

Final Major Project #2

Last month, I shared some work which formed the beginning of my Final Major Project at university. I had such a lovely response from that post and I think it's about time a did a little update. As well as the fact that I love sharing my work on my blog, it'll be so nice for me to be able to look back and see how things have improved over time. My project has come such a long way since the original post and it's kind of scary/exciting to think that in just a few weeks time I'll be putting up my exhibition, and soon after that it will be open for the public to view.

While my FMP subject is still 'Experimental Typography', I have now become much more focused within this subject. Textiles has begun to play a major role and I can't wait to share that part of my project once it becomes more developed and final. For now though I thought I'd share some images from various things that I have done within my work since my last post.

Above is an image which I created within the time constraints of one day while I was on holiday in Devon. I decided to make use of the seaside environment and went on the hunt for naturally formed letters on rocks and pebbles. It was surprising how easy it was to find letterforms once I'd started looking! I've always loved beach combing so it was a really fun little thing to break up my main project.

This next image is another 'mini-project' which I based around phrases and idioms. I wanted to illustrate the saying 'humble pie' in a literal way using typography and this is what I came up with. It was a nice, easy, quick image to make and was great fun - plus I got to eat the apple pie afterwards.

I was so overwhelmed and happy with the positive response I received from my first FMP post and so I hope these updates are something you enjoy seeing. I can't wait to share more of my work soon as my Final Major Project comes into it's final stages and ultimately post photographs of my complete exhibition in June!

Final Major Project #1

As I recently mentioned, I have now started work on my final major project at uni, which is the very last chunk of my art foundation course and is what I will ultimately be graded on. It is a ten week long project and we can choose to do it on any subject we like. We are completely free to write our own brief and spend the ten weeks how we see fit. The end result will be an exhibition which will go up alongside all of the degree shows at Manchester School of Art in June which will be open to the public!

The overarching title of my project is ‘Experimental Typography’. Throughout my foundation experience in the graphic design area, I have taken a keen interest in typography and this now reflects in both my work and research. However, so far this has always been within the context of a larger subject matter. For my FMP, I want typography to be the main focus, taking influence from designers such as Paul ElIiman, Oded Ezer and Stefan Sagmeister.  

I thought I'd share some of my initial work for the project. The images here are of an alphabet I created using cake. The idea began as I wanted to write 'A Piece Of Cake' using cake letters. The rest of the images are a selection of the extensions I completed following on from this, from burning the alphabet to a crisp, to making a negative with icing sugar. It was a lot of fun and it's always a bonus when you can eat the work afterwards!

I'm thinking about posting updates on my work as I progress through the ten weeks if that's something people would like to see? Please let me know if it is!