Sense of Place Assignment continued.. Ideas and Intentions

Ideas, Intentions and Design Process

As part of my research into being at home and the feeling of home and childhood memories and as part of non ICT exploration, I used qualitative data to devise an open questionnaire which I asked participants to answer on their home experiences and what their best childhood memory was. The results were that the majority of participants liked being at home and found comfort there and felt as though home did not feel like home if a family member left for a long period of time, which has helped me with my production because I can include how love and family/childhood is part of being at home. Two thirds of participants said that they call the place where they live “My house” which destructs the comforting element of being at home, which relates to the quote from Lord John Whorfin who states: "A house is where you hang your hat, but a home is where you hang your heart".  This, I thought, was a lovely quote which embellished feeling and desire into  into the saying and created an emotive element which infuses all senses of warmth and compassion. Whorfin is therefore suggesting that a home is a shell of comfort and love where you can feel the affection of mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters and everyone else who is close to your heart whereas a house is a stone wall which is where you happen to live. I then used these results to influence my visual production and to determine my final evaluation.

ICT exploration material consisted of creating a mind map using bubbl.us which is a site used to devise mind maps in different colours, sizes and shapes and which stands out clearly when using it in presentations and production pieces. I used this mind-map to construct ideas of what I wanted my chosen sense of place, Home and Childhood Memories, to represent and what I was going to include in the presentation of the work, i.e. research, pictures, words, drawings and data. Other ICT material used was Tagxedo which allows you to create images with words inside using different fonts, colours and layouts, it creates the perfect imagery.

Questionnaire

1.      What do you like best about being at home?

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2.      On a scale of one to ten, (one being not happy and ten being very happy), how happy are you when at home?

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3.      When referring to where you live do you say “My house” or “My home”?

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4.      When at home, what do you like doing? E.g. Watching TV

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5.      Do you find comfort, safety and security in your home?

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6.      If someone leaves home for a long period of time do you feel it’s no longer home

7.      Have you experienced any memories of which you will cherish for years to come? 

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Once I had discovered information and pictures as well as what I wanted to base my sense of place on, I decided to design a series of simple, but effective posters on Photoshop to represent home and childhood memories.  For my posters I have used a number of quotations and song lyrics to portray the homely feeling in the posters and a variety of personal accounts and feelings from participants and practitioners about childhood experiences and recollections. I have designed posters about home and childhood memory however only a few with both home and memories in the same quote. For one of my posters about home I produced the picture of the daffodil with a bumble bee flying towards it, and personifying the bee by saying "There's no place like home". I decided to personify the bee because of the childlike element which it portrays.  I managed to draw the pictures of both the daffodil and the bumble bee on photoshop using the brush tool and then used the text tool to write the quote which fitted in with the design perfectly.

My target audience is ranging from different age groups starting at 4 year olds, with emphasis on the bumble bee and the teddy bear designs and the drawings of the different coloured cakes. I have attempted to aim my posters at children in particular because I feel the colours, words and drawings would help with development as well as their relations to memories which they are already pursuing and exploring for themselves.

A poster which demonstrates humorous material is writing “Home is where you can walk around with no shoes on” with the picture of some shoes which I drew in a simple design to convey a realistic and entertaining sense of image, I also found it effective in portraying the comforting effect of home.

Materials I used were Photoshop elements 8, Blogger, Tagxedo, Text-Image, bubl.us and paint. I found Photoshop simple to use and it was useful to edit pictures as well as write in different fonts and colours. Blogger was helpful in storing all my writing and material and ICT elements used such as Tagxedo and Text-Image. Tagxedo was used in one of my final production pieces to make the shape of a love-heart with the words ‘chocolate’ inside which I created a simple but effective poster from saying “Home is like chocolate, it has that special place in your heart”. I did this by creating the design on Tagxedo and then saving the image and opening it on paint, cropping it and then saving it to photoshop where I then added the text using the text tool. 



Continued in the posts below..