According to the United Nation's article What Is Climate Change, "Human activity has been a major driver of climate change." In recent years, there has been a growing concern about the human activity of injecting litter into the oceans. I have been thinking about how I can use this as a theme to draw attention to the issues of climate change and the reduction of biodiversity caused by marine litter.
Through my research, I discovered the 196th country in the world “ The Trash Isles”, which is made up of a huge 'trash archipelago' and has its own flag, passport and currency, organised by environmentalists.
In order to draw more attention to this ecological issue, I decided to start with the mass media, which has the property of reacting to and shaping social opinion, and created an informative newspaper for Trash Isles. I combined my graphic design, drawing and typography skills with my illustration expertise. I wanted to create a newspaper that focused on the Trash Isles and the importance of marine conservation.
However, I encountered many difficulties during the project. For example, I spent the most time trying to layout the text and illustrations. As I had not received more systematic training in graphic design before this. In order to make up for the missing knowledge, I put the project on hold, and did some brief research on some good graphic works to extract elements that could be used in my work; at the same time, chenhan and Junnan, my classmates from Group 11, provided me with a source of information to refer to. After this, my typography was much better than before.
I also gained something through this practice. For example, I understood better that I should not reverse the position of research and practice, otherwise the project progress will be stalled. I also realised that when a project gets into a bottleneck, the right approach is to divert attention rather than spending too much energy in the wrong direction. I think it is more correct to anticipate all possible situations in the phase of a project, for example by making small drafts to standardise the composition, and the main reason I did not go deeper into the drafts was lacking of time. If I could do it all over again, I would like to make more pages. This also reminds me of the need for stronger time-management in my future studies, and these lessons will also apply to my future studies.
I will focus more on the connections between disciplines in my future projects. In the past, I thought that illustrations was only about drawing perfect pictures. However, when I got to know it deeper, I realised that the graphic content is only part of the profession and that the impact of illustration can only be fully utilised if it is combined with other disciplines such as graphic design, even photography and mass media.
Through my research, I discovered the 196th country in the world “ The Trash Isles”, which is made up of a huge 'trash archipelago' and has its own flag, passport and currency, organised by environmentalists.
In order to draw more attention to this ecological issue, I decided to start with the mass media, which has the property of reacting to and shaping social opinion, and created an informative newspaper for Trash Isles. I combined my graphic design, drawing and typography skills with my illustration expertise. I wanted to create a newspaper that focused on the Trash Isles and the importance of marine conservation.
However, I encountered many difficulties during the project. For example, I spent the most time trying to layout the text and illustrations. As I had not received more systematic training in graphic design before this. In order to make up for the missing knowledge, I put the project on hold, and did some brief research on some good graphic works to extract elements that could be used in my work; at the same time, chenhan and Junnan, my classmates from Group 11, provided me with a source of information to refer to. After this, my typography was much better than before.
I also gained something through this practice. For example, I understood better that I should not reverse the position of research and practice, otherwise the project progress will be stalled. I also realised that when a project gets into a bottleneck, the right approach is to divert attention rather than spending too much energy in the wrong direction. I think it is more correct to anticipate all possible situations in the phase of a project, for example by making small drafts to standardise the composition, and the main reason I did not go deeper into the drafts was lacking of time. If I could do it all over again, I would like to make more pages. This also reminds me of the need for stronger time-management in my future studies, and these lessons will also apply to my future studies.
I will focus more on the connections between disciplines in my future projects. In the past, I thought that illustrations was only about drawing perfect pictures. However, when I got to know it deeper, I realised that the graphic content is only part of the profession and that the impact of illustration can only be fully utilised if it is combined with other disciplines such as graphic design, even photography and mass media.