Mood Board Learning & Primary Mood Board for my project

When trying to convey a design idea, moods, feelings and fluffy stuff like that are hard to communicate. So professional designers will often use mood boards: a collection of textures, images and text related to a design theme as a reference point.

Mood boards help others to 'get inside our heads' in order to convey a thematic setting for a design or to explain function in piece of work.

Real world inspirations are all around us. So use the camera on your phone to take pictures of everything you see that inspires you - whether that be a bird in flight, a great use of typography on a sign, or the brickwork on a building. They don't have to be great photos in the traditional sense - it's all about capturing thoughts, impressions, themes and feelings.
When putting together mood boards, think of yourself as a curator rather than a collector, and try to have meaning and threads from one image to the next. It makes for easier interpretation.

Whether it's being electronic or physical, the layout of your mood board needs to give prominence to key theme images, then surround these with smaller supporting images that enhance the theme. 
When someone looks at a large image on your board in their heads they'll have questions about it - which they'll quickly scan the rest of the board to find answers for. If you place smaller supporting images around the larger image they should do this job for you by clarifying the messaging given in the larger one.

Locking an idea or a style down in a mood board can be detrimental, as the client will feel shoehorned into going with a particular style. Keep everything a little loose and don't make everything look too finalised.

If you're using preview images from image libraries don't worry about the watermarking on them - it all adds up to a 'hey look, we can change this - these are ideas' feel to the board.

Don't ignore the power of a few isolated words on a board. They're fantastic show-stoppers and give your viewer pause for thought as they have to mentally read what's in front of them. Big, bold words juxtaposed together work very well at creating drama, tone and meaning for any project.

Finally, don't forget to test out your boards before you send them off. Remember, it's not a game of Pictionary, so if your testing audience have to ask too many times what an image means or why it's there, then it probably shouldn't be there in the first place.

The whole process of creating mood boards should be fun - a refreshing break from the often tedious tasks of the jobbing designer. If you're not having fun then it's a sure sign you're going about things the wrong way...

(Resource from: http://www.creativebloq.com/graphic-design/mood-boards-812470)

Here is a mood board that I have primarily developed for my personal project, I plan to execute a book project contain the use of conceptual photography in its content, on purpose to practice my personal creative thinking skills and planning skills. I plan to use photo manipulation in graphic design field to execute the content in the way to combine my photography and graphic design skills. I choose the thin sans sarif fonts in content, cause it gives the clean, simple and clear style of the contents. I have chosen 5 styles of fonts. 

This mood board is a primary decision, I will develop more later on in the process of doing this project.

Project Proposal

Statement of the problem

How Does Money Work? / We are Slaves / Economic Slavery

Banks and merchants have always been guilty of burying people in debts they can’t possibly pay off with the real intention of making them their slaves. Political slavery may not exist today, but economic slavery is rampant. If politicians are not trying to print up money, shave the gold coins, or other corruption schemes involving money, they’ve been guilty continual budget deficits, never having enough money, and war machines, with their imperialistic ambitions to take over the world.  Also, the human mind seems to never have enough, and is never satisfied. It wants the best society has to offer, and will often step on anyone to get to the top. (Jason Summers November 30, 2009)

Money and economy control the entire human race, we as humans are the dominate spices on the planet however we are as well as the slaves of money and economy, human slavery may not exist today, but economic slavery is rampant.

It is difficult to learn. It takes a lifetime just to master one subject. Understanding a complicated subject matter is a lifelong endeavour, and it seems the more you learn, the more you realise you don’t know. Humanity’s main problem is most of their time is dedicated not toward learning, but toward reproducing, eating, sleeping, working pointless jobs, and general existence. (Jason Summers November 30, 2009)

Corruption seems to be going on everywhere and in any field, as well as education that exists in our world right now; tons of private universities and colleges are no longer in concern of educating the students instead they rip-off the students by all kinds of excuses, they seem to be more in concern of business rather than education. Another corrupted situation that can happen to private universities and colleges is that some students can easily bribe the lectures on purpose to pass a certain subject or exams, some are more rampant as if they have tons of money, they can easily buy a degree or diploma certificate. And that is the darkness of the private education nowadays.

Unfortunately, the news profits from this psychological tendency, and exploits it in the worst possible way. Also, complex issues are not presented in proper light and instead are given in fifteen second “sound bites”, leaving people more confused than informed. Instead of educating and informing, they instead rile up emotions and mostly spread propaganda which benefits the big corporations. They also tend to incite party politics and left/right paradigms, instead of uniting people on issues. (Jason Summers November 30, 2009)

The other day I told a classmate of mine not to look for learning resources from newspapers because they are full of lies, sadly the fact is there. I have heard so many stories of how rich companies and the powerful people bribe the media to hide the truth and cover up what’s really happening to the event in a way to benefit a reputation of themselves. A perfect example is the incident that happened a month ago, Malaysia Airline has lost MH370 flight a Boeing 777 big airplane, there are tons of explanations from different people, and the news keep delivering emotional propaganda like telling everyone to pray and pray but never told any useful information of what’s really happened. News channel was filled up with analysis interviews which only gave people more and more questions in mind rather than telling people the truth. 

Objectives

In this project, I am planning to study the use of combining photography and graphic design skills together to develop this entire project as I personally major in graphic design and photography. 

I plan to conduct a project that involves a promotional video on purpose to improve my personal story narrative skills, cinematography skills, filming skills and editing skills, and I plan to conduct a book project as well to design a book with the topic and theme given above in the statement of the problem, the book will contain the use of conceptual photography on purpose to improve my personal creative thinking skills and planning skills as well as photography techniques and editing techniques in graphic design field, this book project will also help me learn more in graphic design field such as layout and other knowledges related.

I also plan to explore other use of medias to execute my project, in both analogue and digital methods, also to explore the use of combining analogue and digital methods, this will help me practice other skills and experiment on different possibilities to apply to my project, as well as helping me learn more on other uses of medias in a way to widen my personal skills and studies.

Target audience and purposes

In this project, my target audience is scoped to the private education organisations, politicians, and the victims of economy rip-off, aimed to the most people in the world. The purposes of this project are to make people understand that life isn’t only about working for “pointless jobs” in another way, life isn’t just about working for money, instead there are lots of other things that motivate our life; and to speak up and stand for the victims of economic rip-off, to point out the fact of the society corruption in the way to make the corruption guilty by standing for justice.

References

Jason Summers: Problems Of Humanity – A Quick Outline November 30, 2009 - http://www.jasonsummers.org/problems-of-humanity-a-quick-outline/

Gantt Chart for the Rest of the Weeks

Inspiring Campaign and Project

I have searched for some creative and awesome projects or campaigns that's done by different people in different fields, artists, photographers, designers and more; and there are quite a few that gave me inspirations on my year project. I will list down these inspiring campaigns and projects I have found.

Insight 2011 Campaign

Insight 2011 Campaign from MIKEPISCITELLI on Vimeo.

An epic, 600-person street party held in Bondi Beach in February marked the official launch of Insight's equally epic 2011 campaign, 'Untitled'. 'Untitled' is a celebration of artistic freedom and, for Insight creative director Steve Gorrow, an act of "sticking my finger up to the industry." The campaign runs for the duration of 2011 and is depicted through a series of installations collectively conceived in Bali by Insight's 'Garage Artists' from around the world. 'Untitled' also 8 sublime original imagery captured by renowned LA-based photographer, Mike Piscitelli.

The campaign was developed conceptually, why it's important to take a stance when you're the last kids not wearing suits. http://oystermag.com/insights-untitled-campaign

To Insight's official website: http://www.insight51.com

I got inspired by its free style of the entire campaign; as "sticking my finger up to the industry" and the campaign "untitled" is the title of the campaign which directly, clearly and creatively lighted the campaign, and suited the theme. 

And this is the spirit of making art, being an artist or a designer; it is also an attitude of art. Attitude of art is what I will be focusing to do in this year project. And I have found this project that had inspired me on how and what to do for "attitude of art" project.

Project Blam Blam Blam

burn studios: Art exhibition in 12 hours (Zürich) from burn on Vimeo.
Blam Blam Blam is a project made by 12 Students in 7 rooms for 12 hours to transform an abandoned house into an installation art exhibition. Featuring works are by 
BLAM BLAM BLAMINKEINEN GAGIFRANK & THE GANGSTEFANIEHUMSANGELSDAS, DAS & DAS

Project produced by burn studio, Burn (energy drink) is an energy drink owned and distributed by The Coca-Cola Company, carrying the official tagline “Fuel your fire”. burn is distributed in more than 80 countries including France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Turkey, Russia, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Afghanistan and Mexico.   

This project is very inspiring on the spirit of turning an abandoned place into such an amazing artistic place; and it is also a place that brings people together to party, have fun and vote by hammering nails on the wall of different rooms of installation art.

I think as a designer, sharing thoughts and exchange what we know helps us to get to know more and learn from the others; it is also a way of attitude in art world. 

This project gave me ideas to change the environment in our department; although our department is not an abandoned place, but seems like it will be an abandoned place soon in the future if all of us still sit in front of our laptops everyday and producing lots of trash in our workspace; I wanna help the designers, photographers, illustrators, animators, artists and etc. to create a place where inspires all of us to find our own attitude of art/in art/ in what we are doing. 

Another inspiring source is a movie I had watched last year The Internship; It's a movie about two salesmen whose careers have been torpedoed by the digital age find their way into a coveted internship at Google, where they must compete with a group of young, tech-savvy geniuses for a shot at employment. In the film, there are scenes in the Google company, where is a completely a "paradise" for the people who work there. 

There is a slide in the company just for fun! 

Bicycles in google company, they go environmental friendly

People who work for Google, don't work for work, they work for fun, I'm sure people who work there don't sit in front of their laptops or computers all day long and everyday. Doing activities, having fun is where people get ideas from, as designers, having fun and knowing how to have fun is the key to lead our work interesting, and it is also an attitude. 

By this, I have considered of creating interesting games for my target audience to get them having fun together and in the meantime to share their thoughts and exchange experience. 

The Gap by Ira Glass

THE GAP by Ira Glass from frohlocke on Vimeo.

Ira Jeffrey Glass (born March 3, 1959) is an American public radio personality, and host and producer of the radio and television show This American Life.

This video is made by Denial, who's got inspired by David Shiyang Lius lovely piece of work about Ira Glass. http://vimeo.com/24715531 

I have watched the original interview with Ira Glass video and found this video by Denial is more inspiring and motivating than the original ones. 

Improving ourselves is an attitude as well; The objectives of my project is to motivate the people who I work together or the new students who are going to be here when I'm gone. I want to motivate my target audience to improve themselves on what they do by finding a right attitude; I considered making a creative video to aid this campaign project. 

Project Campaign Topic Finding

I have been searching and looking at different campaigns or projects that I was interested in I have found a few projects in different fields, the projects that's created by photographers artists, designers and organisations. I had listed down a few topics that interested me to do this year project's topic. 

1, Protect the animals on earth, a campaign to help animals find their freedoms of living and not being tortured by humans. 
I had this topic on my mind and inspired from a documentary I had watched last semester while I was searching for a topic to do for the last campaign; I eventually had chosen to do a campaign to support world peace with my team mates last semester. The documentary I had watched is Earthling; 

EARTHLINGS is a powerful and informative documentary about society’s treatment of animals, narrated by Joaquin Phoenix with soundtrack by Moby. This multi-award winning film by Nation Earth is a must-see for anyone who cares about animals or wishes to make the world a better place. http://earthlings.com

2, Another topic that I am interested in is how this society really is in the real world, in the situations that people actually have this "level" concept between people; where an amount of people who are rich and have political power or any other power mostly look down at the people who are poor with no power of anything, not even their own personal life; and of course, the absolute rich people and absolutely poor people are a big contrast; but the fact is we don't need to draw a level line between the identity of different people. Looking at people from top above or from down below are neither not necessarily supposed to be existed. Cause I think humans are all the same spices and there's a "level" but this "level" is always on the same line in each person.

3, Revolution without war. 
There is hardly to see any revolutions without war except technological revelation; any political revolutions always end up of a bunch of people protesting and fighting till everything  is destroyed. Revolution is a change, but a change needs to pay the effort of everything they have is really not worth it. This topic is inspired by the situation in Ukraine country where people protest to throw their government away, and the government fights back by killing the people who were protesting; there's a conflict in that country that half of the people want their country to belong to Europe and another half agree that the country should follow Russia. As an outsider, we really don't know the facts, and it is also hard to know the facts when a big mass going on by the people; It's like a very realistic drama that's hard to tell what's real and what's fake. And politics is always as complicated as dirty. 

4, Another social problem that I have been looking at is how some amount of people chase the branded expensive stuff; it's like zombies in the movie chasing humans and killing them with no brain to control what they are doing. Buying expensive stuff without thinking if they really need in their life.

5, Attitude of art / Artitude
I had this topic on my mind by seeing how the designers around me in the studio are working and their attitude of being designers and artists; the studio was looking amazing when I first time came to this department, I was actually a little stunned by the whole white design of this place; it stands out from any places in college; time has passed on; this place doesn't look as good as the first time I see this place, the reason in it could be the long time of seeing the same place over and over again; it could also be a problem of the attitudes among us. 
I personally think, as designers, the first impression of being a designer is the creative and positive spirits and the attitudes of doing things, designing and making art is such a fun thing to me personally, and I believe I will never get tired of making art and creating different things. Attitude is the most important thing to live with, it is also the most important thing when you do things and no matter what you do. Having the good attitude leads a person to a positive path of everything, when the attitude becomes bad and irritating, it will always bother a person doing what they do. 
Attitude isn't only about how you think and how you like what you do, it is also about the detailed things; like protecting the environment and keeping the workspaces clean and tidy. A clean workspace will lead a person to a positive and different mood, and changes to a good visual and opinions of the places and space. 

Task 1 Year Project Ambitions

In this last year of study, I will be planning, developing and practicing to get a year project campaign done. So far I still haven't found a right topic to kick start a project proposal; I am still searching for other good materials and interesting stories or campaign projects to dig for inspirations. Having a topic that I am interested in is very important, otherwise will end up having lots of boring research process to do when you are doing something not your taste.

On My Mind
It's a brand new year and the last year of study, I have been thinking about achieving myself by improving some certain skills of myself in photography; such as analogue photography, lens study, lighting practice, camera history, cinematography, and softwares.
Analogue Photography: Understand the methods of analogue photography, how it works and practice.
Lens Study: Looking at various different kinds of lenses, how do they work for the images outcomes?
Lighting Practice: Practice of lighting in camera, properly utilise lighting skills to create images.
Camera History: Understand the evolution of cameras, how do they work? How are they built?
Cinematography: Practice of filming techniques and cinematography.
Softwares: Practice on software using and applying and find out more.

After this year, I will leave college and step out to a slightly different world. and the main mission and goal that I wanna achieve is professionalism. To work professionally, and the most important thing after I step out of college life is to never forget to learn from things and people and practice the techniques through personal life. 
In this year of studying, I wanna find a personal and unique style to create the artworks or any other commercial work. All artists have a style that suit them well. 

Photography Projects
Before I start planning and writing proposal on this year's campaign project, I have read and had a look at other photographer's project and see how they do their campaign and plan their projects. There are several pretty hot project topic online such as 365 project as in 365 days in a year; which I have not really heard about.

365 Days

The most popular of the projects on this list, there are multiple variations of the 365 project.  Typically, it involves taking a self-portrait every day for a year – the only rule is that you have to hit the shutter button (or remote) and at least some part of you must be in the photo. If a photo-a-day seems like too much of a commitment, you can do one self-portrait a week for a year – a 52 Weeks project. 

Pick-a-Something

Pick something and try to get a collection of photos representing it.  For instance, pick a color and try to go all day photographing only red things, or try only getting pictures of things that are square when you’re on a walk. The upside of this project is that it, once again, gets you to start seeing ordinary things in different way, it forces you to start thinking creatively. 

Scavenger Hunt

A photo scavenger hunt is simple. You need someone to come up with a list of things to photograph (they can be actually things like “railroad tracks”, or they can be more conceptual like “fun with friends”, or even techniques like “shallow depth of field”). Then, a group of people all go out and interpret the list how they want and show them to the group. 

http://digital-photography-school.com/7-photography-projects-to-jumpstart-your-creativity