‘Eventually everything connects – people, ideas, objects.
The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se’.
Charles Eames
This brief challenges you to take a metaphorical journey on the theme of connections. Explore the theme as broadly as possible and take us on a journey that might link, amongst other things – people, events, philosophies, theories, objects, movements, inventions, history, literature, etc.
Your journey is only limited by your imagination and the quality of your research – surprise us with the juxtaposition of your selected themes but be sure to communicate to the viewer the ‘connectedness’ of the thinking within your design.
[This project is from the International Society of Typographic Designers Education Resources, Student Assessment Scheme 2002.]
Post your 200 word outline of potential concepts here.
kingscliff graphic design history 
My concept will take a sci fi influence.
The start object will be the starship enterprise (a spaceship), the end object will be our planet or a picture of the globe in space.
I plan on printing each connecting on semi transparent paper, or 100 % transparent acetate (if printing allows). The idea behind this is to show a gradual shift or change from a spaceship picture into a planet picture.
The connections between these two seemingly unrelated objects will be the following.
SHIELDING
Will cover the ozone layer, it protects us from harmful UV radiation which causes cancer.
Another form of shield i will cover will be Magnetic shield from our spinning iron core in our planet. This protects us from all the other radiation and harmful particles from the solar wind.
CORAL BLEACHING
Over heating and increase ocean acidity levels causing massive coral bleaching in our planet. The similarity here between a planet and a spaceship is failure and over heating in life support system.
RADIATION LEAK
In a spaceship this will be instantly fatal, but on a planetary wide scale this has long lasting and prolonged effects on our ocean and land ecology. The incident i will write about will be the Fukushima radiation leak into our ocean and the Chernobyl radiation leak into our land.
ORBITAL SPEED
Whilst our planet might not be able to travel at light speed like the fiction tv show starship enterprise, it does travel amazingly fast around the sun.
-avi
My Connection topic is THE SURF AND SKATE CONNECTION.
Ill be talking about how this 2 sports and lifestyles connect and how they both influence in each other through the history.
Ill be talking about important places and the people that play important roles in the influence, and what they did, how they push the boundaries and translated to each sport.
How board designs changed each sport, and the evolution.
Culture and lifestyle connection is also an important subject.
Fran
My Connection topic is THE SURF AND SKATE CONNECTION.
Ill be talking about how this 2 sports and lifestyles connect and how they both influence in each other through the history.
Ill be talking about important places, like California, Hawaii and Australia and the surfers and skaters that play important roles in the influence, and what they did, how they push the boundaries and translated to each sport.
Skateparks and the beginning of street skateboarding. Also
How board designs changed each sport, and the evolution of them.
Culture and lifestyle connection is also an important subject.
The first skate/surf shop and how they bought separated and get united again.
Also ill be quoting surfers/skaters and interviewing them on bought sports. Il be adding imagery and build a timeline.
Fran
Alexandra Lee- Connections
My project will be about a universal object, the bicycle. The target audience is adult people who are interested in graphics, design, history and bicycle enthusiasts. I will be exploring the history of the bicycle through different themes. The concept may be a linear journey where I use the bicycle graphic as a timeline continually changing the graphic of the bicycle as you unfold the pages.
The connections to the bicycle will be:
1.Leonardo Da Vinci
The first recorded sketches of the bicycle
2.Eruption Tambora
The first 2 wheeled pushing device used by farmers after the loss of vegetation
3. Victorian Era
Many more styles were introduced; the penny-farthing became a symbol of the late Victorian era.
4. Safety Safety
The most important change in the history of the bicycle. It shifted their use and public perception from being a dangerous toy for sporting young men to being an everyday transport tool for men and, crucially, women of all ages.
5. Susan b Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony (February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women’s rights movement to introduce women’s suffrage into the United States. She believed bicycles in powered women and gave them more freedom in hard times.
6.Lithia Spring water
Annie “Londonderry” Cohen Kopchovsky (1870–1947) was the first woman to bicycle around the world. The Londonderry Lithia Spring Water Company paid her $100 to carry its placard on her bike and also contracted with her to adopt its name.
7. United states playing cards
America manufactures bicycles and a deck of bicycle playing cards is the most popular novelty card of that era
8. Olympics
The birth of cycling at the modern Olympic movement in the 1896 Summer Olympics, at which a road race and five track events were held.
9. Earth day
On April 22 1970 Earth day was celebrated, ideas were promoted as a result Bicycles were at a mass production again in the world.
10. Oil embargo
Credit the oil crisis or a cultural shift, in 1973 Americans bought 15.2 million bicycles, and sales were only growing. England produced some of the best examples and so, for reasons of business-minded optimism, wanderlust or perhaps ennui, a handful of young Americans crossed the Atlantic to learn the trade of frame building.
Alexandra Lee- Chocolate Packaging Design
My target audience is the chocolate enthusiast who loves novelty design. The demographic will be middle class males and females from their 20’s onwards. The pricing of the design will be around $10.
The concept of my design is take-away sushi chocolate. A rectangular style box design with chop sticks to pick up the chocolate pieces. Instead of a Soy Sauce it will include a delicious chocolate dipping fudge and wasabi will be replaced by a green mint icing. The chocolates with range from white, dark, hazelnut, caramel, and cream.
The exterior may follow an oriental design of bamboo, or a Japanese pattern of tree, keeping an elegant organic theme by also using wood for the chopsticks. This clean design will make the consumer not feel to guilty about indulging. It will also be lightweight and easy to transport around.
Capitalism, Religion, Globalization, Environmental Destruction and Women
Ecofeminism is an activist and academic movement that sees critical connections between the domination of nature and the exploitation of women. There is a connection between women and nature that comes from their shared history of oppression by a patriarchal Western society.
In Western society women are treated as inferior to men, ‘nature’ is treated as inferior to ‘culture’, and humans are understood as being separate from, and often superior to, the natural environment.
Work became a religious calling, a way of worshipping God. The idea of the moral value of work spread through Europe and to English Protestants. The acquisition of wealth became an approved and worthy goal, perhaps for the first time in history, and this was a major factor in the rise of capitalism in Western society. Religion provided a conducive environment for capitalism to flourish in and the moral high ground from which to pursue profit freely and with good conscience.
Globalisation clearly follows from the imperatives of capitalism. The patriarchal nature of capitalism provides its driving force and defines its essential nature. Commerce and profit making, when they are raised above all other human activity, result in the domination of all aspects of humanity and nature, so that all is subsumed in the drive for profits and economic growth.
For ecofeminism the changing role of the nation state has a variety of significances. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly is that the state is argued to intrinsically be an institution of patriarchal capitalism. That is that historically the state was created as an institution in aid of the market as an institution of control. The economy cannot directly control women’s sexuality, fertility and work capacity, to do this, the state, with its family policy, is necessary. The ‘housewifization’ of women was a requirement of capitalism and the state helped create this condition. As a diverse array of feminists have discussed, women were relegated to the private sphere and therefore denied equal access to participate in ‘civil society’.
Also, many traditionally subsistence-based communities have lost power and control over their lands and their practices, including women’s knowledge and farming capacities, due to their interaction with capitalist economics and the dominant Western worldview. Women in subsistence economies who produce wealth in partnership with nature, have been experts in their own right of holistic and ecological knowledge of nature’s processes. These alternative modes of knowing, which are oriented to the social benefits and sustenance needs are not recognized by the capitalist paradigm, because it fails to perceive the interconnectedness of nature, or the connection of women’s lives, work and knowledge with the creation of wealth.
The pressures of poverty make the exploitation of women and nature as cheap and disposable resources easy to achieve and highly visible. Prostitution tourism and sweatshop labour are examples of patriarchal capitalism resourcing women as ‘the ultimate cash crop’ in the drive towards globalization.
Ecofeminists believe that the domination of women and the domination of nature are fundamentally connected and that environmental efforts are therefore integral with work to overcome the oppression of women. Exploitation of women’s labor as well as the abuse of natural environment is connected as they are both marginalized within the economy. Both the environment and women have been viewed as exploitable resources that are significantly undervalued.
The target market for this piece is humans. Being the most powerful creatures on the planet, we humans should carefully consider our beliefs for the simple reason that the way in which we think transforms the world.
27 – CLUB CONNECT
My original concept was regarding graffiti and its evolution throughout history. I set out with a hypothesis that the messages in graffiti hadn’t changed over time and wanted to show through connections that our walls today are still covered with the same messages of ancient times. While my hypothesis was proved to be correct, the connections between the links in the story weren’t as strong as I hoped. There wasn’t a coincidence to play on, only examples that were millenniums apart.
While I was researching this topic my itunes was on shuffle and played a tune by the Doors and then Nirvana. This sparked my next stage of researching connections as I knew both bands were fronted by famous musicians that died at the age of 27. I had heard of this phenomenon known as the “27 club”, but had never done much research on it. I actually thought the club was much bigger and had actors like Heath Ledger and River Phoenix as members. But I was shocked to realize that there were only 7 members, and that Ledger and Phoenix had died at 28 and 23 respectively. CRAZY!!!
A few hours of research later and all these loopy connections between the musicians kept popping up. A few of them were around during the same era and 4 of the 7 died between a 2 year space. 2 of the members even died on the same date. It was a trip out to say the least.
So between 1938 and 2011 the following 7 musicians have died at the age of 27, were the biggest names in their respective genre’s and through bizarre links have connections (that I am going to typographically display in a manner that will wow your pants off):
1938 – ROBERT JOHNSON
1969 – BRIAN JONES (the rolling stones)
1970 – JIMI HENDRIX
1970 – JANIS JOPLIN
1971 – JIM MORRISON (the doors)
1994 – KURT COBAIN (nirvana)
2011 – AMY WINEHOUSE
For this assignment I intend to take the concept of ‘journey’ quite literally. When I think of a journey the first that springs to mind is the journey of the Fellowship from The Lord Of The Rings and I will be using this as my leading source if inspiration throughout my work. Aside from Tolkien I will also be using authors such as R.A.Salvatore and Rhea Pratchett as a source for a tale that succeeds in progressing the journey. For the artistic side I will be focusing on works related to Tolkien and a design inspired by old cartography. I will be maintaining a general “Old Fantasy” theme that should accompany and accentuate the journey I wish to tell. I want this journey to feel as if it is actually being fulfilled by the reader and so I hope to make use of a medium that brings with it an interactivity that is uncommon. To achieve this I am going to work with a Board Game theme that should capture the ‘journey’ as best is possible.