Following on from my discussion with Craig, I then took to the tape to design small scale versions of my sketches to see what they will really look like. Firstly I designed my first idea of the tape looking slightly alien and monstrous and coming off the walls. I used grey duct tape as I think this colour is the most recognisable of tape and any other colours would start to change the overall idea of the object.
I attempted to make one of these alien looking tape structures on top of text. Although I managed to make it well so it looked similar to how I envisioned it, after speaking to Craig I decided I didn’t like the idea as it started to take away from the idea of domestic abuse and sexual abuse and made it much less obvious what the exhibit would be about. I do however really like the way the tape looks when it writes out the text, the bumps and textured parts of the text give it a very rough sort of feel.
I then experimented with my second sketch of using the tape as a way of covering up the text as discussed in my previous post.
Overall I think the metaphor is. much more effective than the previous design, and the idea of the tape covering up the abuse really hits home and makes much more sense than the previous idea of the alien looking tape, however I still don’t think it’s an obvious enough metaphor and is still largely overcomplicated.
I was slightly stuck and went back to Craig for another 1 on 1 session to discuss what I needed to do next. We looked over my current designs and discussed that the idea as a whole could be much more simple and doesn’t need any extra tape, or alien looking ‘rods’. Craig agreed that the text being written in tape gives a very effective ‘rough’ effect and said in his opinion all I needed to do was have the text written in tape as this is a strong enough metaphor in itself, the text will be real quotes from domestic abuse and so having it written in tape will be an effective enough metaphor in itself. I did however decided to have faces built into the wall to further implement the idea of people being silenced.
I then made my final design, written in tape to give slightly dismantled and rough feel, with ‘faces’ coming out of the wall to give the impression of them being silenced by the tape, the metaphor for the abuser.
Although not my first and probably not my last idea, I was very happy with the base idea and the only thing left to do was make it all.
Overall this stage of the design was the longest as it included sketching a variety of ideas being making them in 3D which was a very long process, however it was taught me that there is no better way to see how something will really look than to just make it. No amount of imagination or sketches and show you what something will really look like until it is put infant of you. Although some of my sketches could’ve been more accurate, as well as the models themselves, I learnt a lot from my wrongdoings about how to effectively design 3D models and overall I have come out with an idea I’m very happy about. In terms of my own practice, I sketch a lot when coming up with original ideas for projects and then tend to chose my idea then and there, however this process has taught me that there’s nothing wrong with designing multiple sketches to give more of an idea of what I like and don’t like.
Ben Jackson 