PPP: MODULE BRIEFING

In the module briefing, Alec discussed what we will be going through this year in this module. Some of the key points in PPP that we need to consider through our experience within the module is money, networking, being a professional and self-promotion.

Our first initiated brief we would engage with throughout other modules in the year would be personal branding. This would involve promoting ourselves using whatever practice suited our skills. This could involve creating a website, social media, business cards, Linkdin etc.

The second brief that we would continuously be engaging with throughout all modules would be organising our design strategy. This would involve blogging all form of interaction we have had within the creative industry and engagement with events outside of the university that inform our chosen practice. Once we have gathered this concise content that reflects our personal practice, we would have to gather it all together in a report like format, displaying a clear design strategy throughout the year and whats to come next. We would also present this in a ten minute presentation at the end of the year.

EXTENDED: FASHION PHOTOGRAPHER'S BRIEFING PRESENTATION

Attached below are the presentation briefing slides Zak and I created to present to our photographers individually. The first two slides are an introduction to the concept of hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. This is where we present our main idea and outline the fact we will be working with three photographers on the project. A small piece of research to follow that rationale has also been included. This is where we explain how open ended they can be with this brief and this small piece of research is one of the many examples they could go down to progress with this project. 

For inspiration purposes on their half, we generated a mood board for each of the topics within our theme hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. These are quite literal mood boards demonstrating some of the possibilities that the garments for each topic could look like. On this section we will encourage the photographer to choose one of the topics that they would like to take control of on the project.

Finally, we showcase some examples of already existing look books that could fuel our side of the project. Some are quite avant-garde approaches to the idea with flip books and colour changing covers whereas some fo the examples are a lot more formal and clean with a clear idea. There is also some recent graduates work there to reference to in competition. These are some of the routes we could go down in generating these publications.

EXTENDED: INTERNAL COLLAB CONTEXT

Zak and I thought that since we were going to create three books with three photographers work, we had to have some form of contextual link between the three. This work couldn't just showcase random content without any rationale. To do this, we brainstormed a bunch of  topics based upon the theme of 'things that come in threes'. Here is a brief list of what we came up with.

• RGB
• Primary colours
• Heaven, Hell, Limbo
• Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil
• Ready, aim, fire
• Small, medium, large
• Third time lucky
• 3 dimensions
• Rock, paper, scissors
• Good, bad, ugly
• Father, son, holy spirit
• 666
• 333

After breaking down the meanings behind some of these topics, we narrowed our search down to 'heaven, hell, holy spirit' and 'see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil'. After some discussion we decided that perhaps the first options could end up being too controversial given the fact we'd have so many people involved. Instead of taking that risk, we went with the theme 'hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil'. We felt that this already had a very strong visual presence within each individual topic and could be experimented with very well within the content being shot, how it was photographer/modelled, location etc. 

We then combined some research into the topic to brief our photographers with to help them understand how open ended or literal they could be with the topic. The term 'hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil' comes from a Buddhist sculpture of three monkeys performing these actions with their hands, created in 8th century Japan. The 'three wise monkeys' are also known by their individual names as Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru. The photographers we have chosen could interpret this however they like, this is just an example about the themes heritage that could perhaps play into the project.

This small piece of research would go towards our presentation brief for the photographers. 

EXTENDED: INTERNAL COLLABORATION FINDING PHOTOGRAPHERS

After reading the brief, me and my collaborator Zak put our heads together to try and figure out how we would answer this brief. We understood that we would have to make something more then just one simple look book given the fact there was two us attacking the project. We had the idea to collate several photographers on this project to really give us a chance to give the project some flesh. We began by looking through the Leeds arts university introduction to fashion manual. This was full of instagram handles of models, fashion designers and most importantly photographers. We scanned through the entire manual and came out with a list of about ten photographers. We split this list into two folders of work we liked and did not like. Then we split the ones we liked into two folders determining of they had graduated or not. If they were undergraduates we figured it would be more beneficial for the concept of communication. If they had graduated that was also fine.

After some time of contacting several fashion photographers, we ended up with a selection of three. Recent graduates Annie Raistrick, Matt Morris and level five student Farid Ghimas. We sent a small unrefined brief in a message to all of them asking if they were interested in a possible collaboration. We stated that we would be making a fashion look book but did not specify anything else. They were all very eager to be involved.

Matt explores a lot of portrait photography and profiling within his work. He is a recent graduate that now works between Leeds and London.  Matt has began to develop his work based around gender identity and sexuality which you can identify within his work, from his model choice and styling to the way he gets the models to pose.

Farid is a second year fashion photography student. Having someone who still works within the university will be excellent for communication purposes. He works on a lot of university based projects, currently working with other students constantly. His work infuses a lot of props within the shoots and great choice of location. 

Annie is also a recent graduate based in Leeds. She has had published work in several magazines including Voir and Vice. She explores a lot of different styles within her photography, some close up profile shots and some carefully laid out scenarios with great use of props. 

EXTENDED: INTERNAL COLLABORATION BRIEF

Attached below is the brief internal collaboration brief. This brief states I need to work collaboratively with a fellow course mate to be able to pass this brief. We need to work together to design a fashion photography look book or series of look books by using the work of a photographer of our choice. We need to use both of our expert skills combined to produce the best possible outcome, making sure that an equal amount of effort is put into the project.

SOMETHING MORE WEEK BRIEF

Today the local studio Something More came in and gave us a talk through the kind of work they're involved in. They explained they work as quite playful as they receive multiple incredibly varied clients. A couple of their mantras were that there is no such thing as a boring project and that you should always make work for a purpose and to have a function, not just for the sake of it. Below are a few of their projects that they presented:

Art, meet the future
Art and design festival in York.

Windows of Leeds
Leeds train station installation

Gap
Jeans campaign

Heart research Uk
Rebrand the charity, heart research Uk

We were given a week long brief to complete in groups by the studio. We were all given incredibly mundane words which we had to use to collate a compelling presentation. We had to spark an interest with the presentation by using story telling or humour to transform a mundane word into something quite interesting. Our word is DUST.

• There is skin in dust but not as much as you think
• Dust hovers around the air
• Dust is used to uncover fingerprints
• Most indoor dust come from the outdoors
• Different types of dust, house dust, metallic dust, sawdust, Doritos dust, organic dust, book dust, chemical dust, fireplace dust, skin particle dust

Out idea is to instead of explain what dust is, but to create a dating app based on people who posses a fetish for dust. This app will feature a variation of different types of dust which people can find their dusty partner and engage with them in person however they wish.

Some ideas for the name of the app are feather duster, duster, dusted and dust. 

A different idea we had was to create a load of lies to present to the audience to try and convince them what we were saying is the truth. 

OUGD505 END OF MODULE EVALUATION

During this module I think I learnt a lot about the time management between larger projects and some less so. I spent a lot of time and put most of my effort into studio brief 1 I believe, creating the most satisfying outcome to my standards in my opinion due to this. Spending this amount of time on the smaller brief perhaps encouraged by studio brief 2 to suffer slightly. I thoroughly enjoyed the mapping brief and its open ended mannerism, convincing me to be more abstract with something that I'd assume to be quite a formal brief. Something that may have effected the quality of my project however is the fact it became quite damaged due to someone else's mishap in the studio. This caused my work to be damaged which could have been avoided if we had draws to keep our work safe in the studio.

Given the fact I didn't spend as much time on studio brief 2 as I'd like, I still managed to enjoy it in the end. I was really struggling in the initial stages of the project given the fact my topic of choice was quite a serious one so after I had completed my research, I felt a bit overwhelmed and unsure how to continue the brief. After much consideration and feedback I figured out I had to make the project more fun for me so that I'd actually enjoy what I was producing. The outcome to this was a more informal to the response which is exactly what I wanted to do. Within this process I have taught myself to try and make each project fun and enjoyable for me otherwise the standard of work will show. Having said that, I would like to try and pursue some more serious topics again in the future.