rossi.ivantcheva

final poster……. oh so late

well better late than never! however 30% will be coming off… the final look of my font is really pleasing… colouring in the letters black really made it look better as only outlining the letters showed the imperfections of my unsteady hand.

I think my font is unique and I really do feel it has turned out really good. I named my font Slav which links it back to being Bulgarian and being Slavic. In my poster I ran out of room so the font is Sl@v so that i could include my @ symbol.

lowercase and numbers….

it takes so long to do this!!!!

first you have to do in pencil and it looks pretty off… (kind of ugly) but as soon as you go over it in a fine liner it looks a million times better.

Finished uppercase letters…

here they are…..

square or round???

So continuing with the alphabet posed some questions as to how i would proceed… whether i would keep it all square or have round bits….

after talking to peter i decided that rounded lettering would be better so it flowed better and also because he said my square O looked like a television…….

ALPHABET – font inspiration

Here is the font that I found online when i was looking for inspiration…

I think that the capital A was what really got me started on my own design plus the influence of peter mcgill to use serifs made it a more unique design and truly my own… well at least i think so!

so this was the first letter i ever did of my alphabet…

after this i decided that my rule for my alphabet would be to have it thick and thin from left to right… and serifs were to be used throughout as well….

Peter McGill said that it reminded him of old Russian fonts, which made me happy as I am Bulgarian and Russian and Bulgarian are both Slavic countries and have the same cyrillic alphabet…. Felt nice and close to home.

ALPHABET

Having 5 days of working into the wee hours of the morning (wednesday to sunday) and hardly any sleep left me crippled for 2 days unable to move with massive migrane headaches.

So my process for my alphabet will have to come all at once but the photos show the process throughout the weeks.

When first given the assessment and I wanted to do a fury font. I wanted to do that because of a font I used for my inspiration for the ideas generation class…

But I was made all too aware that trying to create a fantasy font like this would be very difficult because of all the letters and numbers would have to follow the same rules…

Reflections Paper: Inspiration Cluster 3

After reading the readings for our group’s chosen inspiration cluster I felt a little lost. When I read the keywords I immediately thought that the cluster was based around the ideas of time and space. However once I actually read the readings and looked into the meanings of the keywords, I found that it was a little more complicated than that.

The first reading spoke about how technology today has affected our lives in an immense way. By saying this, what I thought the reading was trying to explain is that even though we live in a world where our cultures and our beliefs vary from country to city to suburb, technology seems to be used throughout (mostly) without hesitation.The reading used the examples of television and how even in little remote Mormon towns in America where you can basically only tune two or three channels, people are able to watch Cable television (porn) in the middle of the night. The reading goes on to talk about the light bulb and the affect it has had on society today in terms of space and time. With the lights being used in almost every part of the city, where we once were unable to go due to the restriction of light, is now available for us. Although this doesn’t apply to every part of the world, the point the reading is trying to make is that with technology today, the boundaries of time and space are so easily broken. “Light creates the necessary space, pushing back the boundaries of time.”

To get a better grasp of what the cluster was about I went online and searched the keywords “Zeitgeist”, “Volksgeist” and “Weltgeist”. I came up with a lot of explanations of the origins and the meanings behind these words. The main idea that was brought up was that of national, cultural and world spirit. The word spirit continued to appear over and over again. These terms refer to the spirits that are associated with context of time and culture. Although this idea of the “spirit” can be referred culturally, it is not bound by borders. “Zeitgeist” refers to the spirit of the age and its society, the mainstream ideas and trends. “Volksgesit” refers to national spirit. All national spirits makes up the “Weltgeist”, the worlds spirit. “Zeitgeist” is the experience of dominant culture of the world. As the first reading mentioned, even in the most isolated of towns, technology has allowed for the breaking down of the barriers for time and space relations.

I’m still a little confused as to how to go about my individual assignments using this cluster. I like the idea of collective consciousness, where the shared beliefs and morals of society make as a unifying force. I feel like that applies so greatly to me as an Australian, as being a part of the Australian culture is not so easily defined by boundaries but rather through the ideas and beliefs of Australians, especially since we are a multicultural society. I feel that this also ties in with the morals of society and how we as a whole have certain beliefs as to what is right and acceptable.

I’m not 100% sure of how I’ll go about doing my individual assignments but I like the ideas of collective consciousness and dynamic flows. I’m thinking maybe for my assignment I could use mirror images with small differences to create this idea of a dynamic flow. To somehow create links and spaces out of bigger spaces. I could use time frames to create alternative ideas and draw on how society has changed. Because the idea of light breaking down time and space barriers was brought up, I plan to make that a big theme of my assignment.

We’ll just have to see how that turns out.

Week 11 Reading: Debating Identity

This week the reading focuses on the subject of identity. Your identity can be seen as anything from a physical characteristic, your hair or eye colour, to a personal trait. Your identity therefore, places you with people who share the same characteristics or traits. As During explains “identity is won at the price of reducing individuality”. Your identity does not define who you are as a whole, you don not posses just one trait at any given time. As During exclaims “identities are not given in terms of what individuals are as a whole, but in terms of more or less arbitrarily selected features that they possess”. 

Your identity is generally given to you from the outside. Socially, people identify with you in a certain way, whether your male or female, African or European. The concept of identity politics in simple words is united people sharing the same identity, examples being feminists, gays, African Americans, becoming political groups based on their common goals, rights. The problem with identity politics is that with sharing political goals for that specific group, other groups are ostracized in the process. Identity politics also erases “internal difference” within the group at hand. Although these groups identify themselves strongly with one characteristic, they can’t exclude the fact that they also belong to another. 

To address the problems identity politics brought about, the hybridity theory was developed. The hybridity theory focuses on the idea that your identity isn’t a solid “a stable trait shared across all groups” but rather something changeable, that constantly mutates depending on your context. 

As During explains, our identity is inescapable. Our identity is part of who we are, we use it to be part of groups and associations and it links hand in hand with our culture. Our identity mutates based on time and context and is greatly affected by social change. through the use of media and the convergence of different technologies, our identities are constantly able to change and acquire different traits. Within the country where we live, our identity is always reinforced with nationality, which is a major part of who we are. If we think about when the Olympic Games are on, and the amount of national spirit that can be seen across Australia, identity becomes all the more apparent. The media gives us the option to pick and choose parts of our identity. Whether your a fan of Harry Potter or you prefer comic book heroes, there is always someone else out there who shares that certain trait with you.

Week 10: The Children overboard affair

This week’s topic is about discourse and the reading focuses on the discourse used in the “Children overboard affair” of 2001. Mary Macken-Horarik focuses on how the media can use imagery combined with text to distort the truth and uses different meanings to evoke certain emotions.

In this instance the medi has been able to mend the truth and create a story based on no ground, which makes the people seeking refuge seem like absolutely inhumane by throwing their children overboard. The truth of the matter was that this wasn’t at all the real story at hand. The media was able to use the image to create negative feelings with readerrs about asylum seekers. The photo that was used wasn’t of children who were thrown overboard but rather of a rescue of asylum seekers whose boat had sank.

The media uses language in a way to make subtle suggestions as to what they believe or what they are trying to say and because we are presented with photographic evidence we are subject to believing it. This is the way media tries to control opinions and emotions about certain people, things or events.

Asylum seekers are commonly known as ‘boat-people’ or ‘line jumpers’ and when spoken about, journalists use ‘they’ or ‘them’. This distances this group of people from the rest of Australia and creates a feeling of unwant. The media doesn’t see that these people come from war torn countries and seek refuge and a better life. These views of them as being a problem for Australia are contextual and based on the party in power. As this scandal was during John Howard’s time and he was against refugees coming to Australia, it is easy to see why the media would take on such an approach in writing about it.

The media has the ability to twist and turn the truth as they sit fit. Depending on the context of the politicians in power and the viewpoint Australian’s are meant to follow, the media can create an emotional response with readers and viewers based on no facts at all. We consume the media from every direction but as I said in my previous blog, it is up to us to decide for ourselves what we believe and how far the truth can be stretched.