Artefact created to deadline!

I'm not happy with the text design for the brand name "headphix", the name I really like as the original idea of Headmix was slightly altered by a suggestion from Tom. I really like the twist on the drug scene in the word.
This design is only for early communication purposes, by no means in the slightest bit polished which is why I am really struggling to leave it alone. But I'm running out of time to get things ready for the HSL visit with Liz this friday and I will be giving the finance exhibition meeting with my Dad in london tomorrow, so no time to polish this anywhere near as much as I want to.  
But hopefully this will do for stage 1 artefact. To be presented in a plastic holder / stand.
Additional page / reverse side with system overview, supplied by Tom Gunston. To be eventually communicated to Reality Jockey to see if they will take the app project on board.

Artefact: communication graphic for feedback on idea & promo visual



Cyberdog splatwear!

Cyberdog clubwear shop, their "splatwear" accessories inspiration for the phone pouch accessory? Club it up! Cyberdog splatwear

Hand painted with UV rubber.
I need to try and find some. 

Artefact (prep)

Finally an idea what the artefact needs to be at this stage.
A communication graphic to tell the idea.
DEADLINE: Wednesday 31st August (ready for HSL visit on Friday 2nd September: gain feedback!)
Current stages: illustrations and self-photo shoot for promo graphic.

The phonebelt! Minimal accessory for holding smartphone.
Could make a fasion accessory / glow / uv material.  



Photography to demonstrate the phone in pouch, preferably a clubber model (have to use self for immediate purposes) Also trying to look fashionable and 'trendy' to appeal to young clubbers.

Belt doesn't have to be obvious. Can store smartphone safely, extremely useful for girls without pockets / or don't want to carry a bag all the time. Belt can also be fashionable in other designs.

e.g. Make out of UV / sound reactive material? Glow friendly. Crazy colours and patterns. (Cyberdog!)

Fashionable accessory to carry phone close will encourage the wearer to plug in. Especially in a nightclub environment.   

Idea for "provocative" marketing promo.
Highlights pracitcality and style, regardless
of how little you wear / no pockets.
Teaser campaign. Svetlana for future shots?

Thanks to Dazz for his stick figures squiggle to help get me past my 5 hour creative block.

Graphic Design support for exhibition

Email to Oliver Tomlinson, old work colleague who may be able to offer us some graphics support and whacking 'information design' for our brochure / invites :-) Can't hurt to ask. 

Hey ollyolly! How's the office in london going? :-)

I have a very little question for you ;-)

How much do you think tomlinson design might be interested in

providing a bit of graphics support for the *first* london arts

central saint martin's MA degree show, in the new 'creative centre' of

london? :D (Kings cross, brand new campus! I'm sure you're up to speed

on that news already as we've been hogging the press almost weekly I

think)

As project manager for the exhibition (yep, I'm officially mad) I'm

trying to rally some serious design support for the exhibition guide,

special guest / VIP invites (serious design swank needed here to pull

in the interest and raise eyebrows) promotional campaign and both

large scale / miniature (back of brochure) map of exhibition floor

plan and location of stands (clear while also awesome 'information

design' needed, therefore of course you sprang to mind :P) I also had

a pretty successful sponsorship meeting with the creative director of

motion printing, who are interested in supporting us for a bit of

splashing their logo on the printed material.

Of course, any help you might be able to offer would of course mean we

could splash you some publicity and get your logo up - a bit of

marketing for you as unfortunately our exhibition bank account is

pretty light at the moment, we're still trying to rally more sponsors.

My next target is the new Renaissance hotel, as it has a brilliant

creative story attached to it and all that renovating has only

recently been finished. So it's a big new local business which I think

could be a fantastic support, as well as interested in the attention

the first degree show of the new london arts campus will be pulling

it.

Thankfully we've also got £3000 worth of free advertising with CR and

access to their designers for our advertisements which is a godsend,

that will make a huge difference in the promotional campaign work and

marketing.

I'm sure you're going to be silly busy, but I thought it would be

worth asking if you were interested in supporting us at all. Just

incase :-) anything you can spare time-wise would be a huge help as we

only have until the end of November to be ready to rock! I'm hoping to

get brochure design started by October at the latest, I'm already

trying to throw together a template for the meeting. This is all

bloody scary stuff.

Anyway, take care and hope you're doing okay :-)

Let me know if you want more specific details about anything. There's

so much going on I didn't want to swamp you in one email.

Rach xx

My own website

Must set one up for my project. Am I sticking with Triptech / Techtrip?
Discuss with Dazz tonight, and maybe use moonfruit? To get something up quickly while also looking professional. I'm not a website designer, so it would take too long to try and custom design and find someone who can code it for me.
Moonfruit

Tuesday 23rd - Motion printing meeting & brochure design meeting

Really helpful and positive meeting with Rebecca Hyde (Creative Director of Motion Printing) agreed to sponsor/support our exhibition printing needs at cost only as long as we represent their logo.

Got some samples, and came away with a great folding idea to have a different yet cost reducing exhibition brochure / guide. Also, thermo print for my business cards on exhibition stand will be a must have! £150 for 200 double sided :D expensive... but will be worth it - looks fantastic, lovely shiny touch feel. Very sound :-) 

MEETING AT CSM 

(Attendees: Rachel, Bushra, Julia, Gary, *oh god can't remember her name! indian FT lady... vinnie? apoorva?*) 

Brochure design notes as of last night. 

Taking in to account it needs to be cost effective. Remember we are looking at batch producing about 1000 of these on a print run. Need to be realistic! But appreciate that it also needs to be something different (experimental?!) and also informative / simple / clear to understand. Exhibition guides are always books of some sort, so we are exploring something different while also being cost effective. 

It's purpose really is clear information design! What is in the exhibition and where it is. We are not looking at making a return out of this, so it needs to be practical. Save the extremely awesome clever (expensive) stuff for the limited print run of special guest / VIP invites (few hundred tops) as this will be a much smaller print run and is doing the job of attracting the attention of the important and hugely valued industry professionals. Crazy awesome ideas welcome. 

SPEC:

A2 double sided (4 fold in to to A5 document)

150gsm silk (not too shiny / too much gloss, nice smooth touch finish, also not too heavyweight paper as it needs to fold multiple times without 'cracking' on the folds)

Action: Rachel to draft layout template and sample content for visual feedback asap

Template:

(SIDE 1)

Front cover (A5 outer): cover design, logo, sponsors (possibly thermo print or spot UV varnish for highlighting logo elements / title - finances depending!! as the state of the account is pretty worrying - please PLEASE pay in your £50 to the exhibition account in order to help cover all these costs for making your stand look consistently branded and awesome, and approach those sponsors!) Reminder of account details:

Sort Code: 08 92 99

Account Number: 65484205

Name: Applied Imagination Exhibition

Back cover (A5 outer): map of room layout / floor plan and stand numbers

Inside (6xA5 sides to open out): student list consisting of the following per student: student image, name, stand no, research question.

(SIDE 2) 

entire foldout (8xA5 sides - total A2 spread): designed periodic table "poster" representing the groups  / students, exhibition name and logo. Arty and wow, look awesome needed by designer. 

COLOUR: 

Action: Decision needed (please give feedback and comments)

option a: Full colour 

(re: the room guide / layout map, do we want to group the different project types together and people represented as different colour groups / display on room plan guide / map on periodic table? easy examples being economic projects = green, technology and industrial = grey, outside the box ungroupables / unpredictable elements = red etc etc. OR - do we not want to be too colour busy if this will also be the colours representing stands? Instead do we want to focus mainly on the orange in huns designs for theme? therefore organise groups just in number sequence and placement in room?) 

option b: 2 Colour 

(black/white & fluorescent e.g. pantone 804 to make the orange a 'wow factor' attention grabbing and really stand out) This would also be cheaper than full colour. But obviously would not be able to represent the groups in colours on the floorplan map (will be on the back of the brochure) therefore groups would need to be number coded. Also student head and shoulder photo/image thumbnails used in the student project list to represent each student would need to be in b&w, but this can often make photos look much better too ;-) Also, stand number and student name could really jump out at you by being in the pantone 804 fluorescent.  

OTHER DESIGN ELEMENTS

Student photos / image. CALLING SKILLED DRAWERS

As an alternative to photography, the idea was suggested that if anyone very skilled in drawing on the course would be interested in doing an artistic impression / drawing of each student, then this could be used instead of a photo. A different and unique touch. It would also be a *huge* opportunity to get your drawings both in to the brochure for each student as well as potentially on large scale vinyl statics going ceiling to floor for each exhibition stand (consisting of student name, exhibition logo, stand number and graphic which is a half face of the student bleeding off the edge of the design - @Pete Otto, have you chased glyfix yet?) Therefore if anyone is interested and has a sample of their drawing work to show, get in touch asap! 

Volunteered design team so far: (WE NEED MORE HELP) 

Hun

Kristian

Rachel (support)

(please get in touch if you have some design skill and can offer some desperately needed support! We also need designers for special guest invites (*serious* design swank and wow bloody awesome factor needed for these! to attract and pull in the special guests! if you are hoping to get some job/placement offers out of this MA, you really should consider this a priority) promotional flyers to hand out, exhibition branded stand postcards (see MA Textile Futures 2011 for example) so volunteers are desperately needed to support curatorial and the design team) 

Insanity

So... *insanely* busy, I barely even have time to update the blog, let alone write any journal.
Was sick on monday evening, tuesday evening I was in the studio early: first filming the walk to the studio for marketing, then spending 2 hours setting up the photo wall and rearranging the room (abdul had blocked our exhibition wall with a studio photo set activity he has been doing in our room, I had to move it) before people arrived, getting prepared for the meeting at 6 which I ran, and was very successful - especially using the negativity activity to engage people. Wednesday was double finance meetings for the exhibition, I was up so late working on exhibition planning and the finance database that I slept through all three of my alarms to go to work today, arrived late :-( This evening is my first social evening and I don't even feel I have time for it as I'm so behind. Friday will be solid work on my project. Updating journal, sketch artefact build plans (how to *communicate* my product idea, need Tom Gunston to help write out audio requirements to forward to my communication to Reality DJ sonic experience app writers in london) and ideally start the layout of my bibliography! Need help with the harvard referencing. Also, need to start re-writing my question and WWHI proforma. So, I doubt I will get to bed before midnight on friday, if not working through to saturday morning. Then sleeping if I'm lucky.

PM - chasing curatorial

Just been chasing Hun for a progress report in regards to graphics support for the Creative Review meeting this thursday. Really hope there's been some response from the rest of the curatorial team or the unassigned students that I also sent out an email to asking for urgent graphics support.

Email to Jono (A&B) re: survey support

Taken the brave pill and tried directly responding to Jono (of Above and Beyond) in regards to his comments that he responded to Tobi about my project.
I really hope there's enough interest from him that Above and Beyond might support my survey link and promote it on twitter / facebook etc, if they do I will definitely need to upgrade my survey monkey account! fingers crossed... as he took the time to read and respond to all those questions, that's my main hope I'm holding on to that he's interested enough to support my project one step further.

from:  Rachel Dunscombe cwrmori@gmail.com to:  jono@anjunabeats.com date:  15 August 2011 14:56 subject:  Feeling music - ear plugs - high volume at events - clubbing scene

Dear Jono,

Thankyou so much for taking some time to answer a few questions, Tobi

was kind enough to forward your response to me (he's been an

absolutely fantastic help and very supportive, an invaluable friend).

My name is Rachel Dunscombe and I am the MA student doing the project

about hearing loss and use of hearing protection in clubs ( studying

at London Arts, Central Saint Martins).

I am currently looking in to some new research in to getting a

prototype product developed and have a meeting lined up with the

Ministry of Sound in regards to their support and feedback. I also

have a meeting in the HSL research centre (in Buxton) with the head of

the sound and vibrations team next month to discuss my idea as it

hasn't been achieved before and they are very interested in helping,

so things are progressing very well so far.

I am still trying to gain information/statistics to support the

research behind my idea, specifically from the more 'hardcore'

clubbing community as this is my target audience. This is in regards

to my own research statistics about the attitude / awareness and use

of plugs when clubbing, duration and regularity of attendance and the

reactions to feeling music (following an interview with Markus Schulz

for the 20:20 exhibition at Ministry of Sound). Tobi has been

absolutely fantastic in helping me with promoting my survey / getting

the word around, and also told me that my idea has been getting very

big reactions and interest on the german trance forums where he posted

about it. Taking me a while to translate it all! I have also been in

touch with Action on Hearing Loss and had an interview with Andy Glyde

(head campaigner for 'don't lose the music') and he has explained to

me that there isn't any current data specifically from the clubbing

community as their campaign is targeting live music festivals, adding

that gaining accurate data from the clubbing community is much more

socially challenging than people attending a festival for example.

Therefore they were very interested in the results of my survey and

requested a copy. I have also been asked to publish my statistics by a

sound and vibrations consultant also a member of the institute of

acoustics, who wishes to include my findings in a conference, as

statistics in this area I am investigating is somewhat unknown.

Specifically by the HSE and HSL who are ultimately in charge of the

noise legislation.

Therefore in order to gain the most accurate information possible, I

was wondering if you might be interested in promoting the link to my

research survey via your online social media resources? Please feel

free to have a look yourself first, here is the link:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/88PCFNY

I am looking for as much data as possible, as obviously, the more

results I get from the clubbing community, the more useful and

accurate the results will be. And as you have unique and fantastic

access to a huge range of very dedicated trance music lovers and

clubbers, I was really hoping you might be interested in supporting my

research and promote the link online? Even a few hundred responses

would make a huge difference to my results and ultimately my project

and development of the prototype product.

If you wish to know more in regards to my project or idea first,

please let me know and I will be more than happy to forward you more

information.

Many thanks again and I hope you are well :-)

Take care and all the best, Rachel.

PM will be the death of me

This project managing business is going to kill me.
Just today has consisted / will consist of:

1> Basecamp. Deadline (monday 15th) for PT student photos to be emailed to me for the photo wall, I made a deadline this monday and out of 19 students I only got 4 responses....
2> Emailed Santiago for his photo as obviously he wasn't present for this years FT cohort photo session at the beginning of the year due to being in the 2010 cohort originally and joining 2011 cohort later on in the year.
3> Emailed the curatorial and marketing reps asking for an up-to-date budget
4> Having a meeting with dad at 5:30 this evening as he is helping me have a look at the exhibition online account and the budgets (he used to be head of finance for Rover and in charge of all their budgets) so his advice would no doubt be invaluable.
5> I will then be having a phone meeting with Pete Otto to discuss finance points raised by my dad and the state of the account. So far, no budgets have been sent :-( only seem to have 1 up to date budget which is Venue team. Extremely overpriced by the looks of it too.

I can't cope, thinking of so many different problems at once, not to mention all the chaos with my project too.... and lets not get in to personal life insanity :-( really really can't cope with all this. I'm going to break soon.

Reality Jockey (RJDJ)

As discussed in meeting with Tom Gunston, Stage 1 of the new artefact build research!
RJDJ

PM - meeting postponed (riots in London)

Email I sent out to the whole of the MA class (FT & PT) after deciding to postpone the meeting tonight due to the extreme situation in london with the riots and travel being very difficult and dangerous at this time.
A real shame as I spent most of my evening last night working on the session plan for tonight and even more work on the group structures and photo wall to be constructed, but it will have to wait considering the circumstances.

Dear all,

I have updated this on basecamp calendar, but thought I'd send an

email around too just to be sure.

Due to the somewhat extreme situation in London at the moment and

travel within London being an unnecessary risk, the meeting tonight is

*cancelled* and will be postponed until next week.

So that's 6:00 pm in the studio on Tuesday 16th.

Everyone take care if you're in london, I hope nobody is directly

caught up in all the chaos and homes are safe.

Keep your heads down and hopefully see you all next tuesday at 6 :-)

All the best,

Rachel

Like it Loud report

Email to Andy Glyde (Senior Campaigner for 'Don't Lose the Music', Action on Hearing Loss) after phone interview from 1:00 pm - 1:40 pm. 

"Like it Loud report arrived safe and sound. Thankyou again for your

time Andy, was very helpful. I will look forward to the 2010

statistics document, it will mainly be for my own reference which I

will include references to specific statistics in my research. So

don't worry too much about the document being too raw / needing to be

tidied, I wouldn't want to take up any more of your time and I will

happily read and pick through the data stacks.

Also, here is the link I told you about, dated March 22nd 2011,

referring to the RNID report (second paragraph) so any news on that

would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.drdavidcotlar.com/?p=65

Many thanks again, and I will be in touch with you later about the

2011 statistics.

All the best,

Rachel."

Phone interview with Andy Glyde

Don't Lose the Music Campaign

Phoning Andy Glyde at 1pm today, Senior Campaigner for Action on Hearing Loss, Don't Lose the Music Campaign.

PM-update

Spent sunday afternoon working on the group structure and naming all the laminated A4 photos with 'full name' and 'known as' name, overly complicated. Reminded me of examiner Dennis's conversation with me on the way back to the tube station, about students not putting the name on their exhibition boards that is actually their real name going on their Masters certificate, instead putting what they would call themselves. Which made examining the work impossibly complicated as the examiners can't find the correct name on the work that they have on their list to assess (which is full name going on the certificate!)
Must re-iterate this point at meeting (attention: curatorial?)

Had two more photos sent to me from PT students, Julia and Gayle, that's 5 down, still 14 more not responded with a photo yet - blank bits of paper with a shadow and person's name I think can represent the people who still need to get a photo to me. As I know I won't have everyone's photo for tomorrow meeting.

So busy with project managing and exhibition stuff I've still not had a chance to work on my own project.... really stressed and feeling behind again.

PM - group structures progress

Hope I get a few more head and shoulders photos from the PT students before monday next week, I put up a deadline on basecamp for 1 pm on monday and sent out an email to everyoe... oh if only Abdul could have put the PT photos on the CD he ripped me in the first place, what an unnecessary complication :-( so far only received photos from Bushra and Annahita.

Revised my question.

Thought I'd update the blog layout with new question and course title, so after some careful thought here is my updated question for now.

"How can a product aimed at the general public attending loud music events, protect against long term hearing damage as well as being an appealing accessory that does not reduce the quality or experience of music?"

RESEARCH EVENT: HSL in Buxton, Derby

Contact made through my meeting last Thursday with Tom Gunston at VJ Technology.
He strongly advised I spoke to someone at Health and Safety Laboratories regarding the research side of my project, and specifically Liz Brueck who is a scientist on the Noise and Vibration team.
My project is now taking me all the way up to Derby for the day!
Currently looking at 2nd September as the sooner I can visit HSL the better I think, hope I can clear the leave with work as the 'new job' starts on the 1st September.

Hello Rachel,

Thank you for your phone call.  It would be great to see you.  I'm not

available on the following days: August 12, 18, 19, and 29, and September

17 to 24. Regarding getting to us you will find instructions on our website

www.hsl.gov.uk/about-hsl/location.aspx

If you want to avoid driving you could take a train to Macclesfield and we

could arrange for a free pick up and return journey for you.  That's much

quicker than taking the train all the way to Buxton.  Just let me know your

train times.

Regards

Liz Brueck

Senior Noise Scientist

Noise and Vibration Team

Health and Safety Laboratory

Harpur Hill

Buxton

Derbyshire  SK17 9JN

Tel 01298 218387

Fax 01298 218395

PM: STUDENT PHOTO WALL (email to PT)

Hey guys.

Sorry to mail everyone like this, but I'm currently working on getting

all the student photos printed on A4 and laminated for constructing

the group structure wall for next weeks session (6pm in the studio,

exhibition meeting on Tuesday 9th) Abdul gave me the CD last week with

the photos he took of everyone on FT and PT at the beginning of the

year, but he's only included the small web gif images for PT! Dammit.

So if each of you could *please* email me a decent quality mug shot

(head and shoulders kind of thing) that I can print on A4 that would

be hugely helpful, otherwise I won't have any images to play include

of PT students, other than what I can hunt down in people's facebook

photo albums which could be risky :P and I'm afraid I lack the time to

dig properly.

If you could please get a photo to me before the beginning of next

week, this will give me time to do the printing and laminating.

RE: SPONSORSHIP

for anyone who hasn't seen this yet, please make sure you have checked

the following sponsorship documents asap. Everyone has been assigned a

sponsor on the sponsorship list to make contact with this month and

find out if they are interested in sponsoring the exhibition. If you

wish to replace your assigned sponsor with a different one, make sure

you update the sponsorship list with any companies / individuals you

approach so nobody else goes for the same one.

SPONSORSHIP LIST

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmhS2j10sbVZdDZITjBQczZ6bU5MelZPUFJDVFJ3eHc&hl=en_US#gid=1

SPONSORSHIP PACKAGE

 https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B5aHf4Dtpz05YjllNDk1YWQtOWJjZS00NTllLWE2YmEtMzNkNDBkOGQzYjA1&hl=en_US

Many thanks, hope to see people next week :-)

Rach

(PM)

Worried about journal

I seem to be spending so much time updating my journal :-( it feels like most of July has been spent trying to update it and therefore getting more behind, I'm still only approaching the end of May....

Comply foam tips!

After meeting with Tom last thursday, I am now testing the memory foam 'comply tips' on my sennheiser CX 300-II, how it improves the sound quality. Absolutely amazing! completely shuts out background noise, bass and high and low frequencies even clearer with that tighter fit and no air pocket as Tom explained. Fantastic. Artefact *must* include these. In black! Also how to demonstrate for exhibit while managing the problem of health and safety (multiple ears trying the same plugs? not going to work or be very hygienic) - weird head image of creating some kind of hanging display so people can see, 'squidge' and touch.

Comply