OUGD403 Studio Brief 3 | Evaluation

Studio Brief 3 was purely research based to prepare us for Studio Brief 4. This brief taught me many things about research and investigation into a certain topic, such as where to start looking. The brief told us we had to choose a story from the papers that were published on  25th October 2014, then look into that story as much as possible to get a strong understanding of what went on and from different points of view. 

From there we could look at other papers whether they were regional, national, international, we just had to find similarities and differences on how it was reported and discuss why we thought this might be. For this brief it was a requirement to start at newspapers but for future briefs where research is needed I will definitely start or at least look at the press as the many papers give many different view points, which is exactly what were need to look for. 

I then chose to move to the internet and more specifically; Twitter. This proved  to be helpful as there were so many results for ‘Russell Brand 9/11’ which gave me a lot to work with, The only bad thing about this is that there were lots of annoying links such as ‘8 more reasons you should hate Russell Brand’. If I were to do a similar research brief again I wouldn’t put my focus onto Twitter. Although it was helpful in a  lot ways, it took a lot of time scrolling through the tweets to find a genuine opinion on the mater at hand rather than just saying why Brand is such a fool. 

This brief has shown me that there are many ways of getting information and many ways of getting other people’s opinions. I now realise how important research is in a brief in relation to the visual side.

Study Task 3 | Newspaper Layout

My group's story was on how an art fraud painter made over 50,000 at auction.

This was our original layout that we decided on through an hour or so of discussion and experimentation.

After the crit we were told that the blue used looks like the blue the NHS use and it looks too much like a leaflet. A suggestion that was made to correct this maybe and make it more interesting was to put a quote in the columns. 

Final Outcome:

OUGD403 Studio Brief 3 | Research Boards

OUGD403 Studio Brief 3 | Research

What did Russell Brand actually say?

In the interview with Evan Davis on Newsnight Russell Brand went on to talk about how the public needs to come together to fix the errors in society. Rather than speaking about this in full I feel Brand was pushed by Davis to speak about topics that would cause controversy, which has been noticed by The Times as they said that Newsnight were ‘chasing viewings’. Brand himself said that he is no revolutionist or anything special, in fact near the start of the interview he said politicians can’t be trusted and stated “I’m not suggesting they start trusting me, an entertainer, I’m a comedian who looks like Jesus”. So I feel that Brand is very self-aware and realises that the politicians and many others won’t take him seriously due to his profession but “as an entertainer, as a comedian, can use [his] voice to amplify people pursuing just-causes.”

The issue of 9/11 comes into play when Davis goes completely off topic and quotes Brand from his book suggesting that the attack on the twin towers was an inside job. Brand goes on to say he’s “open minded” to many possibilities and    questions Davis on whether he trusts the US or British government. When pushed further with a direct question, he responds and tells Davis that he doesn’t “want to talk about daft conspiracy theories on Newsnight”, something that many articles left out of their reports.

Twitter

To get some public opinions on this topic I went to

Twitter as I feel this is a place where many people voice their views whether people want to know them or not. To do this I simply searched ‘Russell Brand 9/11’ and got thousands of results dating back to when the Newsnight interview first aired. The vibe I got from most of the Tweets is that people don’t particularly like Russell Brand, and even more so now. The celebrity turned revolutionist is getting widely accused of purposely being controversial to promote his new book; ‘Revolution’, but I think this is unfair as he clearly stated he didn’t want to discuss the “daft” conspiracy theories, yet he was pushed into voicing his thoughts on the issue then being criticised and mocked for what he believes.

On the other hand I did spot a few tweets saying that Brand was “brave” for saying “what needed to be said”. This opinion is definitely the minority but it shows that Brand isn’t completely alone in thinking 9/11 was an inside job, and that his ‘followers’ or supporters think it’s good that someone with a high profile has come out and said what many think.

Newspaper Headlines

"Another ‘Newsnight’ interview, another row as Brand tries his hand at 9/11 theorist." -The Independent

The headline to this article sets up the tone of voice and views of the writer straight away as it almost makes a joke about Brand and what he said. The term ‘tries his hand’ makes out as if it’s a new career path he’s chosen; to add to the list of comedian, actor, presenter and revolutionist. The article focuses on how he doesn’t trust the US or UK government, and how he is ‘open minded’ about who was behind the 9/11 attacks. It also touches upon how the day after the attacks he went into work at MTV dressed as Osama bin Laden, trying to reinforce how wrong Brand is and how he can’t be taken seriously as he has no compassion for the victims or the families.

"Don’t put all your faith in Russell Brand’s revolution." -The Guardian

This article is without a doubt against Russell Brand. The writer compares him to a power-mad leader from Woody Allen’s 1971 comedy ‘Bananas’, and keeps this reference going throughout the text. Apart from the little section on his 9/11 views, described as ‘blathering on’, it’s mostly about how little knowledge he has about real world politics or what he’s really talking about. Lacking in ‘specifics’, ‘ability’, ‘judgement’ and being able to ‘listen to people other than himself’ he does get credit for ‘making politics seem sexy to teenagers’. This comment is very insulting to Brand I feel, as it suggests his views and ideas are only appealing to that of the younger generation who are possibly not experienced enough to realise what really needs to happen in politics for the country to work. This could also be linked to how the writer described Brand during the interview, with words such as ‘funny’, ‘bright eyed’ and ‘dizzying’, makes him come across as an excited teenager, rather than a grown man trying to get his thoughts and views heard.

"Newsnight attacked for Brand interview on 9/11 conspiracy." -The Times

This articles differs from the other two and from anything I’ve read online. This is due to the fact instead of criticising Brand for what he said, they focus on how Newsnight has been critised for using Brand to boost ratings. The Conservative MP Philip Davies said that the interview was “rubbish” for such a serious news programme. It also has the other side of the argument with BBC defending the interview saying that Brand is able to voice the “anti-politics mood that all British politicians are currently struggling to engage with.” This is the most informative, fair piece of writing on the matter that I’ve seen so far due to the fact it doesn't complain about Brand’s views or what he may have said or done in the past, it just informs.

OUGD403 Studio Brief 2 | Evaluation

Overall I think this brief turned out well. I believe I kept to the restrictions and submitted the deliverables accordingly. 

I think this brief went well because almost all of the research and development was done in Studio Brief 1. All I had to research for this brief was grids for layout and type and that proved very useful to me.  This allowed me to understand how to apply a grid to my letterform and how it would help re-produce it. Although I did this at the end I didn’t actually use my grid as I found it more complicated than just doing it  manually and following my own rule. My rule was moving one of the two letterforms over a certain amount. Th actual measurements varied depending what size I was working with but I got around this by starting on the same size canvas and scaling it up depending on where I needed it, making sure I kept scaling effects enabled. 

If I were to re-do this brief there would only be a few minor things that I would change. One of these being that I would establish my rule earlier on, rather than designing them all on one size canvas, saving it, then forgetting how I did it. In the future I will definitely learn from this. 

Another being  I wouldn’t leave it so late to print off my final piece. Printing earlier would allow me to review it and alter anything I didn’t like once it was printed onto stock. 

OUGD403 Studio Brief 2 | Final Crit

The final crit for this brief told me that I made a good choice when deciding which letterform to take forward from Studio Brief 1.

OUGD403 Studio Brief 2 | Interim Crit

The interim crit told me a lot of things that will help me further develop my typeface. One of the points made was to experiment with different weights, this could be certain lines within the letter-form or just the whole thing in general. This point was then made specific to a certain design of mine as the group thought it would look better if it was thinner. The font that came out with the best feedback was the one with the doubled up letters. The group said this most represented 'violent' due to the sharp points and lines, and could look even better if the weights were changed.

One other thing that got said was maybe adding colour to certain lines would be interesting.