ITAP 4/ Reflective Visual Journey

The way a Visual Communicator comes up with their ideas, is to do something at first. A white paper wont give an answer and so it is important to experiment. We learned that the right brain is like a child at play- playful, curious and innocent.

The left brain is clarifying, organising, editing, selecting what was done.  What do we see? What does it mean? What is useful?  Both brainparts are constanly operating together. A Visual Communicator starts to do something in the RVJ with an intention. An idea needs to develope and can start of in many different directions. The outcome is not the most important whearest the way to the final piece creates further ideas.  Awareness of how the 2 halfs act together can help us to create something and helps to allow ourselfs to experiment at first and not to be bigoted. 

The first brief i received had the titel "looking at the Overlooked". To explore the locality of Birmingham from a different aspect and show a wide range of different techniques. I went to Digbeth the industrial area of Birmingham and took fotos of singns and buildings. Birmingham to me is an interesting city that needs

to be explored.  Below you can see pages of my RVJ where you an see a picture of a sign taken in Digbeth. Not the typography caught my eye, it were the squares around it that reminded me of stiching. I started stiching random forms which you can describe as being playful and experimental. Some of the forms developed to be letters. Also transparacy paper was used and the effect of being see through had an interesting effect. The effect to see how it is done, the unperfect  look of it.

Melox Marvels sign in Digbeth
The forms below the letters reminded me of stiching.

letterform through stiching, by Christiane Matz

stiching on transparant paper, by Christiane Matz

The word unexpected came into my mind. Birmingham is often "overlooked" just like the brief described it with it's title. The first buildings i saw were at new street which are grey and full of old high-rises. Behind all these grey buildings are beautiful victorian houses are hidden. The architecture is multi-facated and therfore interesting. A lot of constructions are going on in birmingham so that the "undone" stiching look  works very well for this projekt. also the fact that it is an instalation which needs light so you can see all of the lines has an unexpected effect to it.

The final outcome, by Christiane Matz