Assignment 5b

Over the past year I have learnt many new skills from Design Studies, they range from primary and secondary research methods, how to create a Harvard bibliography to mind mapping and much more. Here I would like to propose how I would go about applying the techniques I’ve learnt to a tackle a studio brief differently.

I have chosen to look at one of my recent briefs where we were each given a different area of the shipping forecast and research, mine was Fair Isle. We then had to create an attraction within our area and brand or advertise it. The constraints of the brief were very open as we could tackle it in whatever way we wanted, anything from building an underwater community or creating an alternative reality set far in the future, our solution could be as sensible or crazy as we wished.

Through my research I discovered that the Norse name for Fair Isle means island of peace, from this I started to think about creating a religious community on the island. This led me onto creating a religious cult who worship birds and are recruiting members. Which then resulted in me to creating an advertising campaign for a rehab centre on the island, making claims of wonderful success rates and results, however it is all too good to be true as once the addicts are on the island the rehab centre makes no attempt to cure them, instead keep them there with the aim to sacrifice them to their gods, the birds.

Although I carried out research at the beginning of this brief I am now going to explore how by applying the news skills I have learnt I could achieve a more in-depth understanding and a greater valuable knowledge of the subject.

I would begin with mind mapping and brain storming the area, perhaps in small groups with others in the class and help others in return to mind map their area too, this would spark initial ideas and a wide variety of suggestions would be generated which I may have not thought of by yourself. From these initial ideas I would be able to base the following research on the ideas that have been generated.

To gain a basic understanding of the area of Fair Isle I would do a Google search although I know online sources are not always to be trusted and you should never solely rely on the information you gather to form online research.

During my online research I came across some photos taken on Fair Isle by a local photographer. Taking inspiration from the visual experiment technique from the beginning of this semester I could print off a selection of photos and show them to a range of people. It would be beneficial to gather responses to the photos focusing on how the photos of the island and island life make people feel, if they could connect the photos in a short story or feel any strong connections or just general feelings towards the photos. This would generate very valuable data into people’s interpretations of the island and uncover any preconceived ideas people may have of Fair Isle. This is valuable information that Google could not generate!

I then may look at the library’s Cross-Search facility to see if there has been any interesting research done on Fair Isle or other remote islands regarding issues such as island living. If I was still focusing on religion and cults then this research tool would be very useful for finding secondary data on this subject area. As because the subject of religion is so broad, there are many articles on the subject.

I will also use the library to research different advertising approaches, especially Guerilla style advertising as I feel this approach is the best way to reach my target consumer.

A very beneficial research method for this project to gain a great knowledge of the area would be observation. However because the island is very remote this is not a very practical method. Perhaps instead of observing the island I could go to a number of different religious buildings to observe and to gain a more diverse knowledge of different religions. This would help me when I came to construct my own religious cult for Fair Isle. I could also arrange a visit to a local rehab centre to observe and collect literature such as any posters or leaflets to see how they are designed to draw inspiration for my own design work.

I think it would be extremely important to carry out interviews with the cult’s target market, who are alcoholics and drug addicts are at their lowest, desperate to a get clean quick by the easiest way possible. This would mean sourcing addicts and interviewing them to find out exactly what they would look for in a rehab centre. If the requests generated were unachievable in a legitimate rehab centre, all the better for my research, as I want the centre to sound ‘too good to be true’, whatever they suggested I could use as valuable material for my advertising. I could also show the subjects a selection of the adverts I had created to gain feedback and to see how effective they would be. I could then use their feedback to revise the advertising campaign, making it more effective.

Sourcing alcoholics and drug addicts could potentially be putting myself at risk so I could interview recovered addicts as an alternative.

By applying these research techniques to a studio brief I am gathering a richer type of information. I can gain knowledge that is of a higher value and much more useful than the facts and figures found on the internet. All too often a Google search is the first thing we do when is comes to research. But I definitely think by using these primary and secondary research methods within my studio briefs I will achieve more interesting outcomes and solutions that reflect real people’s problems and needs.

One of the most important things I have learnt this year is that design is more than aesthetics. Design is about creating meaning, it is about understanding people’s stories, if you cannot understand their stories then you cannot design for them. This is why it is so important to involve people, though interviews, observation and discussion in your research, as ultimately you are designing for them.

Assignment 5a

I am interested in the subject of where and how people obtain information, how opinions are formed and shaped by who we interact with and what are society’s main influences regarding how we access information and news. I am interested in finding out if any of these factors have an effect on social behaviours or trends.

I carried out research into this subject last semester, starting by using mind maps and brain storming techniques to first outline exactly what I wanted to look at and how I was going to go about doing it. I looked primarily at secondary research however I would now like to propose how I would collect my own primary research data so I would be able to draw my own conclusions and further my understanding of this subject.

I have looked at two texts on a similar subject, the first was ,“Japanese Network Capital: The Impact of Social Networks on Japanese Political Participation” by Ken'ichi Ikeda and Sean E. Richey which focuses on how social capital has a large influence on political behaviour. The second text I read was, “What do Americans Really want to know? Tracking the behaviour of News Readers on the Internet” By David Tewksbury, which looked at how the widespread use of the internet for news reading has changed the way we process information.

Both of these articles deal with different aspects of my question, the Japanese political participation study looks at real life social networks found in local communities, business’s and various volunteer and government lead organisations to see if differences in social structures influence different political beliefs and behaviours. Whereas Tewksbury’s research mainly focuses on news consumption online to discover if the new digital age is changing the way we read the news and if this has any lasting effects on the long-term health of democratic nations.

For my own personal primary research into this topic I firstly need to consider what research methods would be suitable. I want to obtain honest unbiased results into the relationship between news consumption and how or if that effects social behaviours.

I have carried out my own face-to-face interviews into this subject. From my research I was able to conclude that the primary medium used for news consumption and discussion was done on the internet.

My research was insightful but I believe it was not conclusive in proving that people’s views and opinions are influenced by the people they interact with. This could be due to not a large enough section of people being asked, however from my findings I can see the beginnings of trending results and patterns into news consumption. I therefore think further research needs to be carried out in this area.

As I have established that the majority of news and information consumption happens online, I believe it would be beneficial to carry out online observations by looking at the specific online locations where information is most commonly acquired. By using a system such as URL tracking I would be able to determine exactly what websites people are using to read the news and why type of news stories were most popular. I could also begin to gain information and achieve an insight into wither the subjects are sharing or discussing the information with anyone else online.

Using URL tracking is more beneficial and will generate more accurate results compared to asking subjects to keep a diary or to simply asking them in questionnaire format as the automatic recording of URL location illuminates human error such as forgetfulness.

Along with URL tracking it would be beneficial to carry out face-to-face interviews with the subjects as you could begin to gain a further understanding of any offline communications with peers, work colleagues, family etc. they have, and see how this interaction might influence their opinions on the stories read online.

Group interviews made up of people from the same social networks would be beneficial to gain a deeper understanding of influences over opinions and decisions within peer groups. This would show if the people we interact with every day influence or shape our opinions.

Within group interviews individuals can be influenced by others in the group or some might not feel confident enough to share their views, which would lead to everyone not getting a fair chance to speak. However this might work in favour for the type of research I can conducting. The interviewer could begin to see the relationship between the most confident and talkative individuals who may have the strongest opinions and the views of others in the social network. I would begin to see if individuals were being influencing by the more dominant people’s views. However if their views weren’t being influenced, even if they are having others views pressed upon them, this would confirm my results from my interviews that people are not influenced by those they interact with.

I have learnt that some methods of research are not always useful for what you are researching. Many factors need to be taken into consideration such as thinking about how your subjects feel, it is important they are in the right frame of mind and are not put under pressure or feel intimidated. To make sure this doesn’t occur it is beneficial to pre arrange a time and place for the interviews to take place and engaging the subjects in small talk before to help them open up and feel comfortable.

I believe that unstructured interviews are the most beneficial as conversation can flow easier, respondents answers can be fuller and more detailed and as an interviewer you can adapt, change or explain questions further resulting in better responses compared to written questionnaires. It is important for the interviewer to remain unbiased, not to guess or predict answers or to influence the interviewee in any way.

Pilot studies are always necessary so you can gauge the responses of the target age group and or class sector and sort out any problems in your questions before committing a lot of time and effort to the project.

I believe that online URL observations, face-to-face and group interviews are the best research methods to understand where and how people obtain information, how opinions are formed and shaped by who we interact with and what are society’s main influences regarding how we access information and news. By using more than one research method I will gain much fuller and in-depth information than if I were to only to use one data source.

Bibliography:

Ikeda K, Richey S. (2005). Japanese Network Capital: The Impact of Social Networks on Japanese Political Participation. Political Behavior. 27 (3), 239-260.

Tewksbury, D. (2003). What do Americans really want to know? Tracking the behavior of news readers on the Internet. Journal of Communication. 53 (4), 694-710.

Assignment 4

So the second term is whizzing by at a tremendous speed and we're onto our fourth design studies assignment. For this one we were asked to continue our primary researching techniques and carry out a number of face-to-face interviews with people we did not know on our chosen subject, the reason they were strangers was to ensure their answers were not influenced by the fact they knew us.

So I decided to ask the question, "How do people access the news and obtain information on current issues in the 21st century? And if or how their views and opinions are influenced by the people they interact with?" This is carrying on from some secondary research I carried out last term on a similar subject.

First of all I had to think very hard about the questions I was going to ask, I had to be careful to not limit the responses to one word, like yes and no. And I carried out a pilot test on my brother to check the questions.

I asked three males age ranging from 20-50 years and a female aged between 20-25. When asked What is the last news story you remember hearing/reading/seeing, do you remember where you head/read/saw it? Two out of the four interviewees said the murder of MaryMcLaren, one of the male(aged 40-50) subjects saw it on Reporting Scotland (TV) and the other female interviewee read the story on the internet although she could not remember where. The news that Facebook were not going to place a "panic button" on their site was the last piece of news male(20-25) remembered and male(40-50) remembered a video of a Lorry pushing a car along a motorway as the last think he remembers seeing on the BBC news website.

When asked if they had discussed this story with anyone female(20-25) said she had talked about the murder case with her boyfriend, likewise male(40-50) discussed the story of the murder with his wife. Male(20-25) however did not discuss the Facebook panic button story with anyone and male(40-50) had not discussed the video however was thinking of posting it on Facebook.

Three of the interviewees listed Facebook within their top three websites, They also listed, Google, Twitter, Google Reader, ifanboy.com, BBC, The Chaos Engine and another German social networking site (one of my subjects was German).

The subjects favoured radio stations were, BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 5, BBC Radio 4, Wave 102 (he claimed it was only for the traffic updates!), Classic FM and Tay FM. Only one of the interviewees said he did not listen to any radio stations.

Two of the subjects do not read a newspaper regularly, but both claim to read news online, primarily though the BBC news website.

Another of the subjects, male(40-50) reads the Guardian every day, his partner also reads the Guardian, although he said that she mostly only read the magazine supplement. He did however say that he discussed his views on news and current affairs with his wife.

The male(20-25) subject only occasionally read the Guardian, and stated that his parents bought the Daily Express, he does believe he interacts on a daily basis with people who hold the same opinions and views to him and discusses his views with them.

The German female subject stated that she talks with her friends in Germany on matters regarding politics however she does not know enough about British politics and couldn't tell me if she socializes with people with similar beliefs to her in Scotland as she does not discuss her views with them.

One of the male(40-50) subjects believes he does not socialize with anyone who holds similar opinions and views to him and only occasionally discusses these matters with them.

All four of the subjects confirmed that the primary medium which they obtained the majority of information on current news stories was though the internet, there was not a large amount of variation of locations, the BBC News was very popular and Google Reader/RSS feeds coming second.

From my research I can conclude that the majority of people I interviews use the internet to access news stories and obtain and share information on current issues. Only one person still bought a newspaper everyday and even he supplemented the information with further reading from internet news sites. From my results I would state that people's views are not influenced by others around them. However although my research has been insightful I do not believe it is conclusive, as only four people have been interviewed as I feel if I was to do a second round of interviews I would be better prepared with more in-depth questions as I've now had the time to reflect on my first results and can think of further questions. Another factor is that I wouldn't be as nervous asking the interviewing strangers a second time as I have gained knowledge and experience from this assignment.

I therefore think more research has to be carried out wither people's views and opinions are influenced by the people they interact with.

We carried out a class discussion which was interesting to hear others results and views on their findings as we had all done different questions and subjects. It turned into a really interesting talk about all our topics and we started adding our own opinions and ideas.

Bingo was the Game-O

Last week I went to the bingo for the first time with a few of my classmates, the purpose of the outing was not solely to have a good night out, but was an educational assignment set by our design studies class.

The aim was to people watch, the theory being that as a designer I need to be aware of people's behaviour in different surroundings, "too often we tend to focus on objects while ignoring their effect, or how they are used."

So off we went with an open mind and open eyes.

First we had to register, which is free. They asked us to fill out a short form with the usual details, name, address, date of birth etc. however what I thought was slightly unusual was that in small print at the bottom of the form was a box to tick if you were a smoker. I have never seen this before, I am presuming it is connected to the smoking ban, I remember there was a lot of news at the time of bingo halls closing down due to it, so it must be important information to them.

While I was standing waiting to finish registering an older woman came up to the desk and informed the man serving that she had forgotten her glasses, he immediately drew out a whole drawer of spare glasses, all different styles and sizes for her to borrow, she started rummaging through trying on different pairs. This made me giggle; I have never seen a spare glasses service before. This surely tells me something not only about the age demographic at the bingo but also suggests that people here have a different attitude compared to other customers at other entertainment venues such as cinemas. People are not embarrassed to borrow what I presume to be lost property specs. I can't imagine many people feeling comfortable wearing someone else’s ill-fitting, unflattering glasses while you are out with your friends socializing. I wouldn’t anyway.

While I was being registered I was asked another couple of questions and was surprised that I was called me by my first name, I then noticed that everyone signing in beside me was also welcomed by name. Was this because they were regulars and the staff knew them? Or is it simply a corporate rule that the staff must read and use customer’s names from their membership card?

I think by the staff addressing customers by name it helps the customer feel a personal connection with the establishment and would surely make the customer feel more welcome and valued. This is a small but important gesture, as their main objective is for you to spend as much money as possible, something you would possibly be encouraged to do if you felt your presence was valued and would encourage repeated business.

Once I was all set with my membership card and dabber I made my way round to another desk buy my books. This is when it started to get confusing as I didn't know what games to play. I asked the woman serving me her opinion and she suggested as a beginner I play the electronic games but I wanted to stick to the traditional way of playing so she suggested I start on the 'early' book which was short and only 80p.

As we went through the doors and into the main hall we didn't know where to sit, if the game had already started, how we'd know if it had or when it would. We opted to sit quite near the back and close to the door. The hall was large and was decorated with bright and colourful features which gave it a holiday or hotel feel, this possibly creates an atmosphere of escapism for the customers.

There were numbers being called and flashing up on screen and we had no idea what for, looking around it wasn't that busy and people were still coming in so we just settled down and tried to work out how to play. It would have been really good if they put some instructions on the books as there was absolutely no indication of how to play anywhere, not even in our welcome pack. It struck me odd that the books didn’t have any Mecca Bingo branding on them at all as the rest of the building and material given to us was covered in it.

Looking around the hall the majority of people were female, and a lot of people on their own, there was also a fair number of men on their own, more than I thought there would be. No one really seemed to be chatting or mingling with each other, everyone was sparsely seated, one woman had a magazine and everyone seemed to have a drink of some sort on their table, wither it was tea, a can of coke or a pint. The majority of people were definitely over fifty and looked working class, everyone was white and dressed similar, very casual and comfortable, it was obvious people don’t make an effort to go to the bingo, not on a Wednesday anyway.

Wandering around the hall was a number of staff all of which wore name badges and t-shirts advertising upcoming events happening at the bingo. All the staff were quite young, under or in their thirties, and there seemed an equal amount of male and female staff. They came to check your card if you’d won and would pay out your winnings. I noticed that there wasn’t much interaction between the staff and the customers, many customers simply handed over their books without so much as a smile.

Other advertising material was placed on all the tables. It was obvious Mecca Bingo has a strong brand theme running throughout their chains, I felt that they mainly aim their marketing at woman, possibly playing to the female stereotype as all the colours used are pink and have lots of stock style photography of groups of females smiling and looking happy. This is slightly surprising when it’s obvious from the number that were there that they also have a large male customer base.

The game was about to begin, the lights went up, heads went down and dabbers were ready and poised, but I still wasn't 100% sure of all the rules, too late the numbers were flying at me. It was confusing and a bit of a blur, I kept missing numbers and I was nervous I might have to shout ‘house’. At the end of the first page there was an audible sigh as everyone in the room who had not won turned over their page, hopeful and ready for the second round. I soon got the hang of it and before I knew it the early book was over. Some of us decided to go back and get the main book, which was a bit more expensive.

During the break between the early and main book I decided to get a drink, spying the small bar in the corner of the hall next to a canteen style café, I braced myself for what I thought was going to be a very expensive glass of wine, however to my surprise it wasn’t, it was really cheap, the same with the food. Everything seemed very reasonably priced; you could get a main meal for under £4. I wondered if this is partly due to the smoking ban, do the bingo halls have to find new ways to draw people in and make money now customers can no longer smoke inside?

The lights went up for a second time and we started the second book, I had got the hang of it now and found myself getting quicker at finding the numbers on my page. Karen was the first and only person in our group to shout ‘house’, not once but twice in the same game! Everyone in our group started clapping and shouting as we were excited one of us had won, this was a huge comparison to other previous winners in the hall who seemed unexcited and flat when calling house. Other players in the hall also started clapping, they seemed amused and happy for us.

It was really interesting putting myself in a place where I had never been before and having to not only observe my own actions but of those around me too. It was an exciting experience as we all were unsure of what to do when everyone else seemed confident and used to the game and surroundings. It made me take a fresh look at how all the different elements of how a business is run comes together, from how the staff work and the branding is applied to how in turn that effects how the customers interact and behave.

Although we were slightly nervous and apprehensive about a night out at the bingo, we all had a really good time, and might even contemplate going back in the future.

More Free Fonts

I love finding new sites filled with lots of lovely free fonts, so I thought I'd share this with you!

Check out Naldz Graphics for loads retro looking typefaces.

Something I was thinking...

I was back home in Edinburgh over the weekend and was chatting to my parents over breakfast. They were asking me what I was doing at uni so I started telling them what my last couple of lectures had been about.

Since the begining of the year the main message of the various lectures we've received is that the best possible thing we can learn is to be prepared and ready to adapt our skills for the future. We should not sit around thinking that at the end of our three years in education we will simply become a graphic designer. Some of us will, but the world is progressing at such a rapid rate we have to mold ourselves to fit it. Whatever new services, opportunities or problems come our way we must be ready to work with them. Solving the problems of tomorrow before we know what they are today.

My parents agreed with what I was telling them, however my mum who works as a class room assistant in a primary school and regularly helps with reading groups found what I was telling her a contradiction to what she witnesses every day in the school. She feels that in her primary school the children are simply being spoon fed education. There is no room for the children to solve problems and to show initiative? They are to dependent on adults telling them what to do and where to sit etc. everything is 'labeled' and put in boxes. If the children get used to everyone solving their every day problems for them now, how will they cope when they leave school and grow up?

In one 'incident' where my mum was taking a reading group of children aged 8 around a table where there wasn't enough chairs, the children looked at her blankly as if to say "do you expect me to do my reading standing up?" Not for a second thinking that they could solve the problem by going and collecting a chair from the table behind. She eventually had to tell the children to go and get extra chairs as they couldn't work it out for them selves.

It is slightly worrying that the education system is producing children with such limited problem solving skills, when we're being told over and over again in uni that it is our job to be the problem solvers of tomorrow. If feels that they are more concerned with getting the kids though the school like a conveyor belt, ticking the right boxes and making sure they leave with what looks good on paper.

Instead we should be educating our kids at the age of 8 all about the skills they will need to adapt for the jobs they'll be working in in 15 years time, most of which aren't even invented yet.

Or maybe we should just start with teaching them how to think for them selves a bit more?

Assignment 2a

We were asked to read the essay Rhetoric of the image, by Roland Barthes for our design studies class. I found this a difficult read, why to academics not think about the poor unacademic types who may one day be reading their work? However I battled on with it and found it helped when I met to discuss it with the rest of my seminar group.

We deduced that Barthe's is talking about the way we perceive images, he uses an example of an advert for Italian food (pasta, tomatoes etc). He talks about the three main ways we see an image.

The linguistic message, which is the text or copy included on the advert, this affects the viewer’s interpretation of image. In the example he gives us the linguistic message not only gives us the name of the product but also helps convey an overall feel for the advert. It focuses our attention, helping us identify the main message being conveyed in the advert.

The coded iconic message is the assumptions the viewer makes from the appearance of the image, in the advert he used as an example the produce looks fresh and appealing, which makes the viewer assume the company sell quality fresh produce. This does not need to be stated in the text as we can see that from the photo's composition. The colours used in the image are representative of the Italian colours, red, green and white, this heightens our perception that the produce is from Italy.

The non-coded iconic image is literally what the viewer sees in the image.

As a graphic designer I need to be aware of the different levels which people perceive an image. I need to think about cultural differences, and what factors such as age and gender play within the viewer’s interpretation.

We then started talking about the current diet Irn Bru advert which is on lots of bill boards around Dundee at the moment. In them there are two images which are identical apart from one has the phrase "sugar free" incorporated in it somewhere. The 'sugar free' is huge and very obvious. The caption reads "Spot the difference.... Diet Irn Bru, same great taste but sugar free". To me the advert doesn't make sense, they are wanting us to see that there is no taste difference in the diet drink compared to the regular one but in fact the images have a huge difference in them. Which to me states the exact opposite, that there is a taste difference and it’s a big one. However another person in the group perceived the ad to work well, he explained that because the only difference in the photos is the statement that it is sugar free this conveys that the drink is exactly the same as the regular version with only one difference (no sugar).

I think this in an example where the viewer really relies on the copy to make sense of the advert. For me if the advert did not state, "Same great taste" I would come away thinking that Irn Bru's sugar free drink tastes completely different to the regular version, which I know from the copy is not what they want me think. So this is an example of how the linguistic message has affected my understanding of an image and advert.

The story of 3 random photos

For our design studies assignment we were asked to pick three completely random pictures from a stock photography site and ask several people to connect the photos in a story. The story could be as nonsensical or literal as the person liked as long as they linked all three photos, there was no order they had to begin or end with, they had complete free reign.

Some people I asked found this a lot easier than others.

From a male Tools Developer age 25:

"These are flamingos, they are on holiday - you can tell it's an all inclusive one because they all have bands.

It is a very expensive holiday.

Their god looks down and approves of their holiday, despite the window above the god, as far as the flamingos are concerned, there is no higher entity than their stone god.

All is well on the flamingo holiday, and they are looking forward to getting some prawn crackers tomorrow, from the nice lady that ships their bedsheets from China."

From a male dental student age 20:

"Chinese woman is taking a leisurely boat ride when she hits two flamingos with the front end of her boat. A mermaid comes and saves the flamingos and takes them to a flamingo paradise. The ancient Peruvian people then made built a building with a sculpture of the mermaid in her honour as they worship the flamingo."

From a male medical student age 20:

The flamingos are to be transported from an inner city zoo (indescribable in place or time) on an ancient oriental boat to be slaughtered and cooked by the descendants of an ancient queen. The queen is remembered by her family in the form of a stone sculpture on their house.

From male software developer aged 45:

Mabel & Doris had got to talking about how they had never been to Hong Kong to visit their great aunt Flo.

“No time like the present” said Mabel and they made a MAD decision to leave right away on a cut price ‘bring your own bedding’ cruise.

Unfortunately when they arrived Great Aunt had passed on BUT they were VERY pleased to see she had been remembered in a by a loving sculptor friend the harbour wall….."

From female primary school class room assistant aged 43:

"Pete Neon and a band member from the Neon Needles were in down town Hong Kong when they got stoned."
(This story is a reference to a Mighty Boosh episode)#

From male high school student aged 17:

"Two fridge repair men, Roger and Steve, decide to go hunting for flamingos so they can keep them as pets on their farm. This farm is a noodle farm but is not very successful as it is located in Yorkshire. They are convinced that the noodles will grow there and are certain that it is ghosts which are stopping their farms success. To fix this problem they contact an evil wall goblin named Carl who wasn't so much evil as just not well liked. Mainly because he rarely bought people drinks and was no fun at parties. They asked the spiirt for help but he declined because he was in a mood, and Roger fell into such a deep spell of depression that he jumped from a cliff but miraculously survived and now runs a McDonalds franchise in Shetland. Steve got lost in Ikea and was never seen again."

(I'm not sure if this one actually fits the brief as it doesn't seem to connect all three photos? But it's quite funny.)

I also emailed the photos out to a few people who I wouldn't be able to see in time, and one of the few people who got back to me was my old college tutor who kindly stopped her class for a 5 min break to ask them all for their stories.

Unfortunately I don't know their gender or age, only that they study graphic design. Here is a selection of their stories:

"As I was flying on my flamingo across the world I made a stop at china to have my breakfast when I heard about a statue of a head that I must see. I searched high and low but could not find this statue. The only thing I never found."

"I looked up at the mermaid's head on the pub wall and decided to go on a flamingo quest. We will take a raft and go to Flamingo Island, using our white sheets we'll build a tent fit for a princess. Maybe I shouldn't of had that last pint..."

"This is a story about Miss Nootchie and Patch's adventures in Thailand on holiday. the first day they went to the zoo and saw everything pink, it was a short visit but Noochie now does a good impression of a flamingo. Patch demanded that he bought some cheap white fabric so they went on a snorkelling trip to catch one of the ladies on the boats to give us her material. The found the mermaids head above the hotel door very amusing as it looks like the building is giving birth to a fully grown mermaid."

"Once upon a time we lived in a hunted house. The house was very scary and had a woman's head made from stone sticking out the side of the wall. It turns out the woman was a farmer who bread superhuman flamingos to fight terrorists. But one day a boat arrived from Hong Kong and the people left the boat and killed all the flamingos. The woman was very sad and went into a deep depression, eventually turning into stone. A builder was so inspired by her story that he placed her stone head into his first house, this upset the dead woman and caused her to haunt the house forever."

"There was once a woman in Thailand rowing her boat, she was in a peaceful place and rowed past a garden that was beautiful and radiant. Within the garden she spotted flamingos fishing. Their heads bobbing in the pond that was positioned in the middle of the garden. The flamingo walked forward and presented a fish to the woman. She took the fish and row back to shore. At the fish market the woman sells this fish. The fish market is an old building with a stone carving of Possidons wife at the entrance."

"There was an old man who lived in a boat, he was cold and lonely and the boat was very emty with just him in it. One day he decided that he no longer wanted to be lonely so he went ashore to the town and went to the old 'Face-building', so named because of the large stone face above the door.

When he approached the door the face called out, "who goes there? What do you want?"

The old man replied, "I'm just an old fisherman, I came ashore to find a friend"

"Oh really?" The head said surprised. "Fair enough."

Smiling the old man went inside, there in the building the old man decides to buy himself a flamingo.

Never at any point did he bother to ask himself why there was a talking stone head above the door of a shop that sold flamingos, but I'm sure you didn't either, did you?"

Although I cannot tell the age or gender from these stories they help give me an idea of some other view points, reoccurring themes and story lines

Some of the recurring themes in the stories are depression, mermaids, royalty/god and holidays. Most of the stories start with the picture of the flamingos or use the flamingos as the main focus of the story. I feel that the more "creative people" like the HNC graphics students did come up with longer and more detailed stories than the "non creative" people, such as the doctor and dentist who found the exercise difficult and struggled to link the photos even in the most literal way. This is probably because graphics students are used to problem solving and 'thinking outside the box'.

For the second part of this assignment I had to pick one story and find a fourth image that I felt summed up it's main message. So that whoever I showed it to would be able to come up with the same or similar story as the original.

I chose this story:
"Chinese woman is taking a leisurely boat ride when she hits two flamingos with the front end of her boat. A mermaid comes and saves the flamingos and takes them to a flamingo paradise. The ancient Peruvian people then built a building with a sculpture of the mermaid in her honour as they worship the flamingo."

I thought that a photo which represents the Peruvian people worshipping the flamingo would be good and with a small bit of research found that the Peruvian flag is red and white which is to represent the colours of the flamingo, it was chosen to represent the country's new found freedom in 1820. As flamingos represent so much to Peruvian people, I think it would be quite possible that they might build a sculpture in a mermaid's honour for saving them. So for that reason I chose a picture of the Peruvian flag as my fourth image.

Unfortunately I did not have enough time or know enough people to ask them the final parts of this assignment.

I have been finding the workload pretty heavy at uni the past couple of weeks, combined with a large amount of studio work and deadlines and it taking me longer to understand and read assignment 2a, plus reading our design cultures book, I have run out of time. Studio work is not really a problem but combined with the design studies side of things which is a completely new way of working for me, I feel it demands much more of my time than the module hand book suggests, especially combined with the amount of work we have in the studio. I'm upset that I could not finish this assignment.

(Sorry I don't know why the pictures have gone weird, I wont be able to fix this till next week)