Visual Style

Exploring collage, using materials like fabrics, sequences, string, magazine cutouts, receipts. Basically - things we collect and often things comes with consumerism....
This is for the different auditors. Can you guess? its the girl that loves old school romance..

Experimentation: Work In Progress

Changed target audience to females and the boyfriends as the secondary audience.
This is the sort of style I am working with. Will try to mix hand-made media with vector art (icons). This is just experimentation, not the final illustration!

Major Project: Work In Progress: Icons

My first set of icons - its rough but its a start. Not sure whether to just have the object itself, or to always have the person icon with each object. I know there needs lots of tweaking, but hows about the general look of it?
*Im not a good drawer, so i found images from istockphoto as a base for proportions!

ICONS BRAINSTORM GALORE

I am starting to organise my information in a logical manner to help me see what visualisations are necessary. Ive got a few ideas for each, but still exploring!
If anyone thinks of anything clever let me know!

MOOD: Tongue in Cheek!

Icons alone I need:

::CHAPTERS::
1. Auditors - Girls analysing the gifts/gestures
2. Assets - these are the material gifts
3. No Value - non material gifts and verbal sayings
4. Trade Secret - tells the guys the secret in interpreting women's language

::TACTICAL MOTIVES::
Different dating stages
1. Courtship - the chase, beginning stages, trying to impress
2. Steady Dating - officially a couple, stable, for at least a couple of months
3. Commitment - start to see it long term, potential future
(4. Not Interested - just dont care no more - not certain yet if this would be included!)

::SITUATIONAL MOTIVES::
1. Birthday - have one person value (should be something for the girl)
2. Anniversary - celebrating time together (should have two people value)
3. Reconciliation - after a fight and saying sorry (should not be a material gift)

::DEFINING GIFT VALUE::
1. Low Risk - typical, boring, predictable gifts, basically doesnt have any personal value
2. High Risk - dangerous, could be easily interpreted the wrong way, have to be careful
3. Sentimental - girls can treasure, keep it. For eg drawing, note
4. Spontaneous - best for those random moments, big or small
5. Individual Value - just for one person
6. Couple Value - couples able to share the experience/gift together
7. Activity based - involves physical activity, planning is necessary
8. Over the top/Cheesy - vomit worthy, too much for the girl
9. Practical


THERE ARE SO MANY TO DO FOR! EEK! May need to cut down eliminate. Information can be arranged in many different ways. Whats the most practical and effective way?!

Inspiration: A visual style

Emilkozak

My latest thought on trying to resolve my visual style:
It could be as simple as this - simple photography of the product and behind it (similiarly to this) would be illustrations that ARE THE FEMALE VOICE. This allows me to have more fun with my visualisations and enjoy the process - as we all know these gifts communciate so many things to women unbeknown to men! So I can play with typography, handwritten messages, stylised drawings, little icons etc..That way these objects can create a mood that is appropriate to it.

Visuals should be up soon, still working on them :)

Another learning list

We are always forever learning how to become better because the design process is indeed complex. One thing I always do and have been for my project is creating metaphors - it provides an entertaining base and allows us designers to imagine another world as well as role play.

For example in Love Transactions
Gifts & Gestures = are assests that allow you to investment into relationship
Guys = stockbrokers investing, making decisions on what assests to choose to invest (which many are unaware of)
Girls = auditors - analysing what and how men give gifts

From the article....
02 METAPHORS
“Themes and metaphors are great platforms for ideas and I try to develop them both from a holistic perspective (ie, basing a site around a playground metaphor) as well as a design perspective (colour schemes and layout styles, for example). If you can hit a decent theme that allows you to convey and house the content, it’s a good place to be.”
50 ways to become a better designer

Guide Book

Rumbero Design

* Guide Book designed for the ISC freshmen

This is maybe the answer - icons ont he side like an address telephone book the quick way for guys to browse through the book.

Major Project Problem

The current issue I am having with my project - is that how to appeal this information to the male audience.
My target audience is 20-25 yr olds who are mostly students who are just figuring out relationships, dont have a big spending budget, have a lot on their mind, and of course are clueless when it comes to understanding what women want.

So the people that would respond to my piece are
1) men who know they are clueless and want help and;
2) females who think that their friend or boyfriend need help in the area.

So the assumptions I am making here are that to appeal to men is that it has to
1. Wont spend a lot of time on trying to get informed on this topic - so it needs to be straight to the point
2. Needs to look cool
3. Relate well to instructive steps, manuals
4. Short attention spand

But arguably, the audience are people who are wanting help in this area, will actually take the time to look through. So it doesnt necessary have to be boring simple sterile images. It can be a little fun and exploratory - still there needs to be an exciting visual style.

Major Project Presentation

My interim presentation to the panel.

Feedback: Need visuals! Inspiration Anyone?

Major Project Update #2

The chapters itself, are an evolving timeline from trying to impress a girl based on a very basic level and understanding that all girls like x y & z to a commited relationship. Remember this information is not going to suit everyone but has been drawn on from academic readings & social research.

1. "Off the shelf love"
Looks at the typical love commodity products such as chocolate, roses, teddy bears would be showcased in a form vending machine and rather than a price it would be given the actual value of the gift in icons form - i.e reaction,
typical occasion.

Im still seeing if i can figure out some code system like a gesture =
E4 or something and that would be made referenced later in the book in the second chapter.

2. The love market
Divided mainly into two sections looking at the different ways to invest - line graphs and a grid graph to address
1. how certain great gifts/ideas depreciate in value (market crash)
2. how inappropriate/boring/mundane gifts can increase in value (based on the positive qualities identified by women social research - so this becomes tongue in cheek)

3. Can't buy love (working title to replace 'no value/priceless')
Some sort of journey/map or timetable that showcases, the little gestures you can do in a day from morning to night. Basically to show how gestures can be done in your everyday life that women appreciate more so than others and dont take much to do, and its not all about the big grand gestures or materialistic objects men assume we always want. I guess the best idea is some sort of interesting flow chart...

I thought of a metaphor like going to work or uni - what do you take -bus/car/bike and each transpation is a representation (im highly generalising here) but its like
bus = dependent on others, organised, time based or it could detour
and the bus arrives late..
car = can afford to spend more money, have more access and
conveinence, impatient
bike = labour work, can invest more time,

and within each adventure you take, there will always be gestures that you could do for your partner.... for example, the mode of communication - write postit note/send sms/ or making a sandwich, or as you say when sad, a massage. But as
everyone's lifestyle is different, I just need to find a good way to manage and limit the scenarios.
I guess it could just be say 3 different 'budget planners' - that visually illustrate the amount of things you can do in a day, month even seasons?!

** So the metaphors are a bit off track - but ive just thought that these gestures can be in a form of receipts transaction and requires the audience, to collect, up to you building up .... still thinking...its a start i hope.

Finally, there would be
4. "Sealed section"
This is where it expose women - decode/translate the reaction of women towards your gifts.

Still thinking would love some feedback guys and girls.

Hope you all progressing well.

Major Project Update

I saw this image (courtsey of mr Dan Andersen) a while go from Threadless T-shirts (threadless.com) and it may have been the contributing factor for visualising my first chapter to the project "off the shelf love" That is the typical commercial gifts all to fit within the visual frame of a vending machine also supported with infographics!

Im also starting to wonder that this may work better as an interactive flash piece rather than a print piece - like the way I showcased my cupcakes as a product in a theatre stage setting and on one level it was just the cupcakes introducing into its own setting with a narrative and then it would also have a 'family' (similar flavours in the cupcake), 'friends' (complimenting flavours) and of course 'enemies.' It was a product based website, encouraging users to engage and therefore buy it - which is similar in the project. There was so much level of information that can be added and catered specifically to the guys motive/situation for the gift giving behaviour.



Oh now I am really confused!

http://www.threadless.com/product/657/Some_Choices_Are_Just_Out_of_Reach

Love Transactions: decoding Messages of Love.

Love Transactions: decoding messages of love, aims to explore the complexity of gift-giving in a romantic context. ‘Gifts’, in this context, are defined as to tangible (objects) and non-tangible (gestures) and are an embedded ritual in the dating through to the commitment stages of a relationship As its starting point the project draws upon both academic literature as well as personal anecdotes amongst university students living in Sydney. Primary research has shown that women are too familiar with ‘the wasted gift’ because gift-giving is not just about the physical gift itself, but the meaning behind it which is dependent on factors such as the context of the relationship, the motive, and the way that it is presented and packaged. Further, women fail to inform their partners of what it is exactly that they want; as such men draw notions of ‘romantic’ ideas from the commercialised world.

This project uses economic terminology to frame gift-giving behaviours and also references the historical roots of gift-giving as fundamentally an economic exchange disguised as a social activity:
1. Investment – looking at the standard stereotypical gifts that have been commercialised by the retail industry;
2. Depreciation – factors that impact on the value of the gift/gesture;
3. No Value – focuses on the non-material gestures

The target audience will be the ‘young adult consumer.’ While, the underlying message is to visualise this complex information for men, (in the hope that they understand this ritual a little better) it is also for women to see how hard they make it for men to conquer this.

At this point in time, the final outcome will be presented as a print piece which will have tactile elements to complement each chapter. The data will be visualised as a mixture of funky information design (annual report-like) and puzzles, maps, codes etc, for the target audience to decipher as essentially that is what men are doing – decoding what women want/need/would love.