Camera Lens Calendar!

This is the worlds first camera lens calendar designed by Sharad Haksar for his clients. His objective was to "create an innovative calendar that strengthens my profession as being a creative photographer".

Since the camera is the most visible sign of a photographer, I think his idea works perfectly. The biggest problem is, only his clients can get their hands on one! Aaargh!

Research Methodologies

Recently I've been indulging myself into hard bodies of text (sad, I know!) trying to understand different methods and techniques of doing better research. I was pleasently surprised at how little I knew about these techniques.



Design Research: Methods and Perspectives is an excellent book by Brenda Laurel that interestingly explains the perspectives designer's should consider when doing research. Below I have mentioned some of those methods of research and I will be elaborating each one progressively throughout the next week or so, so stay tuned!

1. Experimental

2. Qualitative

3. Quantitative

4. Speculative

5. Experiential

6. Performative

7. Discovery-Led / Poetic

8. Formal / Structural

9. Procedural

Sliced Bread! (Notebook)

The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread!

Could taking notes have been more delicious? This is a 12 slice/notebook set which has been packaged for convenience. Each delicious slice has a number on it (1 to 12) so you can use each notebook for the related month.

I can't wait to get my hands on one of these!

PDF Making Workshop

In our all day PDF workshop, Mark and I created a basic and informative pdf document. We used a 3 column grid, Arial Regular and Bold in 11pt and 22pt fonts. I think our choices of composition and imagery could have been better, but overall I think the design is straight to the point. (PS: we did have a lack of time!)

You can view our results below:

Typography at it's best!

There was a launch of a new Turkish-language edition of the New York Times' International Weekly. To advertise the launch, the newspapers commissioned this incredible animation - a typographic tour starting from Liberty Island, across various bits of Manhattan, before arriving back to a gorgeous view of Istanbul rendered in type.

The typography hangs together beautifully, and the level of subtle detail rewards re-watching. The waves, rippling banners and flags are a lovely touch, just noticeable enough to add to the sense of place without distracting you from the overall theme.

Here's a link to one of the adverts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ8CUcvPT6s

3D Workshop

We were given an opportunity to attend a workshop involving moving objects and creating narratives using 3 dimensional objects. Jesse Wine, a 3D sculpture artist studying at RCA, conducted the workshop. We were given random objects (mostly carrots, unusually!!) and told to create a narrative using these pieces only.

Here are some of the 3D narratives I created with Dilbert and Adam:

Carrot Face (Or balls?!!)

The Olympic torch!

A mass 'carrot' murderer...

Crop Workshop

Below are my results from the cropping workshop with David Sims. There are 11 images, each with a crop style to determine a detail.

1. Crop to Define

P: The crop defines the emotions of the image
M: Takes away the atmosphere of the image
I: It definitely makes the image more definitive and focussed

2. Enhance Emotional Impact



P: The emotive impact of the image is enhanced considerably
M: Crop takes out reason of emotional impact
I: It creates a comparison between the cyclist and driver

3. Make Look Distant

P: The blur creates a distinctive close-up effect
M: The close-up and focus is poorly defined
I: You get a good 'cut n paste on top' effect with the heads

4. Discreet

P: The crop creates a good correspondance between the two babies
M: The crying baby isn't actually discreet?!
I: Both babies share a common perspective

5. Depersonalise

P: The crop gives the impression that the man is Scottish whereas in the main image he is in fact carrying an England flag.
M: The wrong information is presented
I: It suggests the viewer is unaware of the actual theme of the image

6. Crop to Abstract


P: All the cyclist's faces have been focussed upon
M: You can't actually tell whether they're cycling or not, very misleading.
I: All the heads create an abstract image effectively

7. Bold & Exciting


P: The circular shape increases the boldness and creates an exciting view
M: The feature and originality of the image is lost
I: The crop creates a totally different entity

8. Narrow Angle Vertical


P: The crop creates a great angle of the people on the train
M: The diagonal shape is pretty weird and would be especially for an article
I: This crop works perfectly with the image above

9. Narrow Vertical



P: The crop creates an open story, it could be used for many narratives
M: The crop takes out the important factors of the image
I: It creates a very clever composition

10. Wide Angle Horizontal

P: The crops makes it more dynamic

M: It doesn't tell the full story

I: It captures the emotion perfectly

11. Close up of Detail

P: The crop gives a more dynamic effect to the camera in the image

M: The main aspects of the image have been excluded

I: The story is untold until you view the entire image