Category: Negotiated Specialist Project

Responding to feedback

After I recieved back my completed questionnaires, I was able to understand what people find most appealing and in context with the magazine, it seemed that minimalist was a popular choice as well as nature, however it was apparent that pop culture was the most inspiring and so I have been responding experimenting with this feedback, using my illustrations in photoshop, I was able to collate the three themes into one, expressing a minimalist theme that cultivates a juxtaposed visual of pop culture and traitional japan, so my final theme is – Minimalist pop nature

Illustration Experimentation – Photoshop

I began using my theme visuals in photoshop to begin expanding on my feedback, I played around with pop and nature, creating different colours and variations like warhol. As I’ve been becoming more confident on Photoshop I have begun to use layers and new tools, I found by using the select tool you can select areas and change the filter, colour, brightness of just that section, so I began to play with this on the lower images, combining new found techniques with filters and hues.

I opened my illustration in photoshop, I playeed around with filters and found one called fresco which I liked, I decided to intergrate the pop culture theme by using layers and editing hues and saturation in each of the layers

I decided to intergrate the pop culture theme by using layers and editing hues and saturation in each of the layers

I then began altering the brightness and saturation further, building on light and colour

I used the fresco filter to start off, darkening the aesthetic, I then selected boxes within boxes, altering the colours and saturation in each untill I had bright colourful result, using layers to control each feature.

Photography Experimentation – Photoshop

After recieving my results I looked back at my artist research and felt inspired to use photography, looking a Ren Hang, I wanted to explore contemporary nature photography and so I began editing some images I have from the allotments and gardens using suggestions from my feedback. I decided to explore the idea of using pattern and colour blocking, I have been reading an article on Japanese graphic design and it is reccommended to explore colour. Below I had panel hues down the images and I had repeated the image on the top right to explore pattern, I feel these are interesting effects, I like using pop with photography as it looks interesting and inspired.

Pattern illustration – Photoshop

I decided to keep trying out patterns with my other nature work, exploring pop again by altering the hue and saturation, I feel this will be the technique used to bring in a feel of pop culture, however I must be careful with the saturation as it can make it unnaturally vibrant.

I found it quite simple in altering these howver it was hard to chose which colours to save as there were so many options, I feel it this process would work well with the idea of pop culture and minimalism however I feel it would be good to explore other options further perhaps using the same effects here with more primary photography.

My activities workshop went well, I was able to collect the feedback I need to narrow down the most effective and favoured activites for development. These were activities four, five and seven: learning a new language, mindful colouring and drawing a landscape. I found the most favoured exercises were by individuals between 18 and 30 and mostly female, I feel I could rebalance my appeal through quirky fun visuals though I now have a clear direction in target market.

Below are some results:

Activity One – outcomes

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This was a successful activity, everyone was able to follow the instruction and visualise their breath as a drawing, the feedback from this was positive and helped everyone relax and feel uplifted, I found the same from my results from my presentation in Feburary.

Activity four – outcomes

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Activity four: how to imagine and paint a landscape, this activity was one of the most successful, each individual created their own landscape and they were all impressed with their results, most took them home but I was able to keep some good ones. I feel this was mostly fun as they used basic steps but everyones came out differently, I feel this would be a good one for the magazine.

Activity Six – outcomes

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Activity Six – how to draw an eye: This activity worked well however not everybody was happy with what they made, I found that people became more up-tight and worried about what they put on the paper, the best feedback was from the people who surprised themselves and felt good about what they had drawn and learnt.

Activity seven – outcomes

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Activity seven: mindful colour also went very well; I already had the paints out from before so I allowed everyone to use up their pallets in this exercise. This was one of the most favoured exercises and helped everyone express their creativity, I had a participant mention the fact that if this was in a magaizne not everyone could use paint as they may not have access, I felt this was helpful feedback and has made me think about creating illustrations for colouring instead or as well.

Working Out Results

I used this chart to log my results, each chart it one individuals feedback so I logged twelve. I then counted up how many individuals voted a certain number for which exercise and turned that into a percentage.

Questionnaire

My results have given me direction in aesthetic, I provided four themes and it seemed that pop culture, nature and minimalism were voted highest and almost came won, however minimalism was voted most in context, nature was most favoured and pop culture was most inspiring so therefore my final theme is a combination of the three. I gave the participants the option to suggest and reccomend other ideas and themes for further experimentation and so I will now begin exploring these results visually and practically.

below is my official report and results:

official results report

Questionnaire Results

Market Research

I developed a range of activities for my market research trial and constructed an orderly plan for the workshop. After a group tutorial with my peers, it was recommended to explore some more art related activites which I thought was a key suggestion; I was becoming so consumed in the philosophy of Kaizen I was losing my focus on art therapy. This helped me redirect my focus and I was able to add two more activites for trial creating a total of seven potential exercises.

Workshop Time Table

I will be conducting this workshop in two days time and have been preparing feedback sheets and different research methods, I feel it would be good to keep the work created however I feel it would be most fair to give them the option to keep their work as I have the results I need. Below is the first page of the feedback sheet.

Questionnaire

I have also developed a questionnaire using my developed themes, this will help me narrow down an aesthetic for my audience and encourage a path of finalised development.

Nature Theme

Surrealist Apocalypse

Pop Culture

Minimalist Theme