No8 M/cr bombing 15 years today and additional thoughts on where to go next Part 2...

Reflective Journal Entry No8 15/06/11

Well the day came around today where we finally reached the 15th anniversary of the Manchester Bombing in 96. For me it was a day of disappointment, after getting the positive feedback around October last year from The Royal Exchange and talk about putting together a small display of my graphic materials acknowledging the event in the RET, the timing and the recovery, the whole process dwindled into nothing, and nothing actually came off in the end, which pretty much summed up the 1st semester submission, lots of promise, lots of talk, lots of excitement about potential, speaking to various people connected with the day, the events, and the post bomb transformation of the City Centre, all to no avail in the end, and again at the end of Semester 2.

However today there is a renewed feeling of optimism following discussion with the current project work, in between the 2nd semester delivery and now the beginning of the 3rd semester. Yesterday and now today I have had 2 very encouraging conversations with the management at The John Rylands library in town, and this could provide the opportunity to finally sort out the materials for the AV Slideshow? I shall be undertaking another Lecture Theatre test at Centenary next Tuesday morning, 2 options with and without soundtrack, and also now including some items of my handwriting, as I really want to expand this project into using my own typography, my own handwritten examples.

It was certainly mentioned in the last Semester, that the tests in the 109 were only rough drafts or rough cuts, well this if fine, but for me the term rough cut means that this leads to a finished presentation and it here that I will be aiming to conclude the project with the additions as laid out now in my sketchbook in previous posts.

Finally today I also joined The Typographic Circle, thought it was time I should to expand further my network of contacts and looking at potential show options in London later in the Autumn.

http://www.typocircle.com/blog/

Latest scribbles Part 2...

Latest scribbles Part 1...

No7 Additional thoughts on where to go next with this project... and Christchurch.

Reflective Journal Entry No7 14/06/11

Today proved to be a day where there is the potential to revisit a couple of areas of creative archive, and to explore archive materials. There has been a theme although not immediately obvious to the general onlooker at first, which is running through the creative background of my work on the MA Core Project work. It is with a certain degree of irony that back in September last year 2010, I proposed a 'cross geographic platform' as an education resource for both Manchester and Christchurch in New Zealand. Manchester because of the bombing of 15/06/96, and this anniversary will be upon tomorrow, and Christchurch because of the Earthquake of that month, and since again with far more tragic consequences, the loss of 181 people, and now again at the beginning of this week 13/06/11 where further quakes have once again caused damage and injury. The plight of the people of CHCH is very much once again on my mind as we have both Family and friends there, many of whom have lost nearly everything, it is a sobering thought...

My original aim was to create a 'resource kit of materials' which act a guiding point for CHCH, and show how a city can survive through a significant event, in Manchester's case it was the 'air raid bombing during the early part of World War II', and the 'IRA bomb of the 15th June 1996', in the case of the war damage it took the city over 25 years to really get to grips properly with the regeneration, this is really not a well known fact, because for many it is taken largely for granted.

I have throughout the work so far explored a personal archive of influence, to show how the city has changed once again and still continues to change year by year. I appreciate that there is a guidance from the teaching team, to see a different approach and direction, but for me both semesters so far have been connected and this final semester will also have a connection, however it will be connected more by an installation delivery mechanism, than visual idea?

I'm going to pursue this area of handwritten script, to introduce my own writing style and typography, by keeping this more focused and also in a tighter delivery, I should be able to realise my eventual outcome and deliver a completed package of materials... It has been frustrating so far not to have properly completed to my personal and professional satisfaction one of the last components, this being the AV Slideshow presentation, this is where I shall be moving ahead on, to use this as a vehicle for the typography area I want to explore. In addition my goal of having a projected installation at a chosen venue, could once again be very much on the cards, after the bitter disappointment of being fobbed off by a couple of well known organisations, I hope to soon have better news to post on this, as this part of my project is still for me an area I want to explore further and complete.

No6 The Death of the Handwritten Script?...

Reflective Journal Entry No6 13/06/11

http://ilovetypography.com/2007/10/22/so-you-want-to-create-a-font-part-1/

I have been giving more thought to the hand crafted script of my handwriting, and will thinking about this wondered if there could be explored both a left and right handed version? In the last few years I have become increasingly interested in the development of left handed tools, implements and pens, having spent my early school years in Manchester resisting the pressure from my teachers to write 'right hand only', I just took for granted that I would just get used to right only equipment, to such a level of use, that even now using a left handed scissors feels strange to use.

This line of exploration is in its early days and not sure if this will be fully developed in the coming weeks. I do hope that it will form some part of the final educational resource of materials? Again not sure if this is going to fully explored to the level I wished back in September, but the aim is to pull together all the finished components of 1st and 2nd Semester materials and have them play a part in the 'proposed resource kit'.

The link included in this latest entry outlines how you can create a font from your own handwriting, this is one of the ideas which has been running around my mind for the last couple of years. Yes it is mainly digital in after conventional creation, but this serves up a platform from which I will draw upon to create larger installation pieces either for a final piece or as part of an ongoing practice?

No5 The Death of the Handwritten Script?...

Reflective Journal Entry No5 13/06/11

As stated in No4, I want to challenge myself with this chosen subject and I feel that there is a very real area here to explore. Modern digital technology has brought about some significant changes in the last 5 years alone, and I would certainly be a false statement, 'if I said this for me was very much a welcome thing', especially as my Professional practice both teaching and direct client work has benefitted enormously over the last 10 years alone. This morning I have been working through thoughts sketching out ideas, studying through a practical exercise how my own handwriting looks over scale and using different pens, these examples will be posted next after I have photographed them.

What this exercise proves to me, is that I don't have one defined style to create this family of fonts I want to create. Tony my tutor at college said to me very early on, 'that many factors shape the way we write, how we hold the pen, how we were influenced in learning to write and the type of pen, brush or even quill we use'. He also made an interesting comment that because I'm also 'left handed' I immediately rotate the implement I'm using differently. For many years I was never really able to use a right handed fountain pen, why I hear you say? Well it's down to the nib and how it's machined, because I'm using the nib against its grain it will tear the paper I'm writing on, which is why the nib has to be machined in the opposite direction.

This link shows a number of examples of how left handed people hold the pens.

http://www.nibs.com/Left-hand%20writers.htm

A quote from this site states,

While there is a common perception that fountain pens are problematic for left-handers, the truth is that lefties love fountain pens. In fact, left-handers tend to own fountain pens at a higher rate than their percentage of the population might otherwise indicate...

No4 The Death of the Handwritten Script?...

Reflective Journal Entry No4 11/06/11

I want to challenge myself with this chosen subject, but at the same time I'm also conscious of not leaving myself short on time again. There is clearly a lot of ground to cover in this chosen area of research, an area which for a number of years I have thought about, but never really got into in any depth. I have from time to time started to think about the subject and the resulting craft skills, and it was after once again after delivery of a presentation to my HND students on Tony Forster that I now feel that the time is right to explore this area.

Later I will return to this subject...

More historical supportive refs...

A selection of web links to further develop the historical content for background research.

http://www.thinkingwithtype.com/

http://thecaseandpoint.com/2011/04/doyald-young-poster/

http://vimeo.com/12733075

http://www.society6.com/studio/lishoffs/ABC_Superheroes

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/arts/04iht-design04.html?_r=4&src=recg%3Fsrc%3DISMR_HP_LI_LST_FB

http://museum.antwerpen.be/plantin_moretus/index_eng.html

http://www.linotype.com/414/claudegaramond.html

Historical archive link for handwriting...

http://www.fontsource.com/handwriting.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Manuscript-Studies-Raymond-Clemens/dp/0801487080/ref=pd_sim_b_1

http://www.fontsource.com/aboutfonts.htm

Initial research route for both Fonts and Handwriting, both of these give a brief overview of how the processes of both developed. These will now feed into the beginnings of the biblio I will need to get underway for the dissertation.

No3 The Death of the Handwritten Script?...

Reflective Journal Entry No3 09/06/11

As with most skills these days, it is the craft of writing by your own hand, which is now being seriously undermined by 'modern technology'. While the advance in digital technology is in the main a good thing, I believe that it has also allowed a high degree of complacency and in some cases lazyness to creep into contemporary communications. It was certainly very different for me as child when from the age of nearly 5 I was encouraged to practice, practice and still practice my handwriting, and when I mentioned this fact it is viewed with a sense of bewilderment by a younger generation, who's ease with the modern digital technologies in most cases they just ask 'why?'

I do find that over the last 15 years in particular, both from my own Professional Practice in it's latter stages and into my first foray into Teaching, the loss of basic skills, writing a handwritten letter, even signing their own signatures and basic note taking, appears to be beyond generations below the age of 25? I found it deeply worrying when I would be looking at young designers or graduates CV's and letters of application who had applied for the advertised position, just how many who could not write a 'both upper and lower case' many with just joined up caps, these would not be on the candidate list.

As I said this is a personal view and some might say this is wrong? Well lets debate this, get a discussion going put the topic out there and see what people think?

For this latest aspect of my blog I want to test this out and these 'Reflective Journal' entries are now part of this process, and will feed directly into my dissertation.