Modes Of Design

I started the context unit based on my curiosity, which was triggered form the ‘Who Am I’ exhibition at the science museum. I felt that it was important to me to take the opportunity to research and learn about something different. The process started with a genuine interest in science and the methods used. I believe that my piece was also highly influenced by the detective show CSI. This helped to narrow down to forensic photography. I was interested in the methodology and the history behind it.

My curiosity continued to structure my interest area, which evidently grew through out my research. When I started, my intentions for the design was to create a supporting creative work that would enhance what I would talk about and what I had discovered. I missed judge time and it is clear to me now that my idea to create my own crime scene was far to ambitious, telling a story through a series of photography’s. Not only did I want to create my own crime scene I was too naive in thinking I would have enough time to learn and take the opportunity to work with a more traditional type of photography. Learning to use analogue photography to get a better feel and idea of photography and the way it was appreciated before.

The nature of the project was covering an extensive topic, which needed to be thoroughly researched in order to grasp an idea of how I could marry my written piece with the design. My ideas were beginning to generate but in a very general way, I think that talking to my context tutor helped to narrow down and conclude it to a relevant design. The struggle, was understanding the field and reflecting that across, my first intentions was that my only solution to a creative piece was to produce a book that displayed all the content, which would balance out the aesthetics and the written content. As my research in to the field expanded I started to get a clearer idea on what interested me. I was interested in the way photography was used as a form of identification, which was documented and recorded as evidence in law enforcements. Understanding the power photography held.

From the influence of my research and CSI, I started to consider my concept for my visuals with more consideration. I established that my visuals needed a concept that was addressed in a more traditional form, which would instantly be recognised for its purpose. I needed to make sure that visuals had to integrate text an images in a relevant way. In order for my out come to work I needed to make sure that I kept my visual as simple as possible. My visual is divided into five archive files. I wanted to portray, authority, power and official importance as if a criminal case. The brown symbolizes the traditional colour used for achieves.

I used letterpress to produce the labelling on the covers. I felt that this form of technique added to the attention to detail which is manifested in the late 19^th century and early 20^th century. I believe it added affection and a reminder of history to the visuals. It was essential to keep the design of the text very simple, as in normal forensic reports there isn’t much of a structure to the text layout, just a simple word report. For me this aspect was very important to be portrayed simple because the content is more important then anything else in a normal case.

In terms of images, they are all printed in large scale to covey their importance of truth and reality? Also to focus on the attention to detail. At first I was going to bind the pages, however the option to leaving the pages free seemed better, as normally investigators would take out images and other relevant content on the table in order to calculate and solve an investigation. I tried to maintain a simple theme through out the visual identity of my dissertation.

The outcome, allows the reader to choose sections of the content in any order. It allows the reader to interact with the material and grasp an understanding of theory, history and the images itself. I strongly believe that the visual outcome expresses the characteristic nature of the text in a valuable and formal way. In all honesty I did struggle with understanding the theories and principles of my subject but I have enjoyed taking the risk of learning something new that was out of my comfort zone. I believe that there is a lot of potential for further exploration. Over all I am pleased with my out come and with achieving an academic piece of writing.