Time to think...

So the last days Ive been running around college talking with every teacher Ive been able to find, to figure out where to go with my project next.. So many opertunities, adn so many diferent answers.

Lately Ive been thinking alot about changing the focus so that I go abit away from the church signs and look at sign design in general, with a focus on DIY signs. In Dalston there are so many of them, and I think its so interesting to look deper in to it.

Paul Rennie agreed, and gave me some tips and said he thought it was a good next step to maby focus on Dlaston, go around interviewing people in the local comunity who is behind the shop signs etc.

The next teacher I talked with was the photo tutor. He thought I should go out and photograph the ten best signs for the photo exhibition, but except that he didnt really have very much valuable feedback.

Then I saw Phill Baines. He thoght it was abit funny, and liked to look at the project as a whole, where you can see all the pictures next to each other. He also gave me ideas about how to analyse my information, and I got the feeling that he meant I had alot to work with and that It was not nessesary to change topic (to signs in general)

After this I emailed Paulus, and under you can se mine and his email:

Hey Paulus

Since youre not here, Ill send you an email instead

During the holiday Ive been taking a lot of photographs for my unit 14 project. What I wanted to do was to make a circle over London and photograph all the church- signs and advertisement church posters etc that there is within that area.
This is the locations that I have done so far (ca 210 of them):
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=109411821780457898455.00048434546eaffc2de11&z=12

As you can see Ive only done about half within the circle, though still pretty much. You can see some of them on my blog: www.churchunt.blogspot.com (its devided into areas)

Now I am at the point where I am not quite sure where to go next. There are loads of ways I could go with it, but don't know what would be the smartest and most learn-full in the same time as being fun and interesting.

some examples:

- keep on photographing for a week so that Ive done the whole circle. In that way I would have enough data to make graphs, information design, etc etc about london in genreal as a final product.

- focus on what Ive got now, and start putting them in to category's based on fonts, amount of words, colors, message and so on, and see where that leads me.

- Find the most characteristic ones and go out and photograph them on a good camera, large scale for a church signs of London book

- Go back to the roots of the projects, and focus on the quirkiness of things?

- Make a manual for how to make the perfect church sign?

- Design and make a large full scale church sign?

- Focus on the advertisement part of it and lead the whole project about the advertisement for heaven?

Today I even considered changing direction full on. One of the things that I have found out is that I really appreciate all the different "designs" that people that might not even know what a graphic designer is, makes. Hand made things, where the letters might be centered and written in yellow on a pink background, if you know what I mean. That was kind of my starting point as well. Those are the signs that I think people would have the most interest of looking at. I have been thinking about changing my focus from churches all over London, to looking into a community- such as Dalston where I live, or one of the suburbs in South London. Spend a week going around documenting, photographing and talking with the people who works in the nail shops, churches, cafes etc where things being properly designed is not happening- but where people personalize things them selves. Ask them why they did things in such and such ways and look at it as a opsosite or contrast from "designed design". Look at the things that are there today, but will be changed to Helvetica in a couple of years, or will disappear as the designs plans that follows the London Olympics take over east London. Maybe I could make a neat little document book/ zine, consisting of pictures and stories from the black suburbs of London, a little movie, or even a antidesign guide- how to make personalized design... i don't know..

I could still use my church signs for the masterpiece photo project..

I guess- bottom line is- I need to structure this now- and make a super strict plan for how to spend the next 5 weeks. And I would like to have that done as soon as possible. You've seen what Ive done earlier, and maybe you have an insight about what could be worth going deeper into for me and would be valuable to bring with me further in my graphic design portfolio.


Any feedback is more than welcome :)





Aswer from Paulus:

Dear Bjornar,

Your project seems to develop very nicely. Be assured that in a
project like yours it is normal to experience self-doubts now and
then, but believe me the rigour and the stamina and the breath of your
work will eventually pay off.

My suggestion: Start analysing the church signs now, start
categorizing exactly like you mention in your email. Maybe use three
main categories:

- Technical characteristics (dynamic and static ones, sizes, materials maybe?)
- Design characteristics (central axis, ranged left, logotype-like, purely text)
- Linguistic characteristics (amount of words, amount of verbs, length of sentences, hierarchies, etc.).

This will give you a breath of data to display in your project
and also show that you know what you are talking about. It will also
set you apart from people who just talk about being fascinated by
these 'non-designed' objects, as you will discover what non-design
actually means. While you are doing this, it would be great if you
could continue to explore the other thaughts you mentioned in your
email, since the 'non-design' indeed lives within people. Maybe you
manage to interview the people who designed those signs, or the ones
who produced them. Interview them and take a picture. This would
fabulously round your project up.

Don't misunderstand. Your project is not about church signs. It uses
church-signs as a subject of study to talk about the ephemeral, to
'un- or non-designed' and as such the project develops it's strength.

But you need credability, you need to become an expert, understand
'what' it is you are dealing with. Only then will your project have
the strength you want it to develop. I am more than confident that you
can do this and that this project will have a beautiful outcome,
examining and celebrating the 'un-designed'.

Best wishes from Vienna

Paulus


Getting Paulus resonse was exactly what I needed to keep going, and keep focus. I still dont know what my final result will be though, but I dont want to rush the decission. This project started as a experiment, and has been living its own life all along, so I will let it keep doing so for some more time.

I wonder where the information I gather out from the photos will lead me..