OUGD505 - SB01 - Using the sound of New Age music to create Images

So to create images to use in my responsive designs for this project, I will be using the song which I mentioned in my last bog lEnya - Only Time.

As I listen to the song I will begin to draw various images on paper different emotions.. using the sound of Enya and the feelings her song produces should allow me to create expressed images in which I will be able to use as researched inspiration.

Whilst listening to the music multiple times, I took a 4H pencil and began to draw various emotions, I then went over these drawing with a fine liner which would help in transfering these images digitally.

Below you will see the drawings that I produced whislt listening to the music

The designs are very different depending on what mood they belong to.

The designs that I will create on my T-shirt prints will not neccerseally look like these designs above. However the designs that I do end up creating will be loosly based on the shapes and layouts of my drawing based from enya - only time.

OUGD505 - SB02 - How will I respond?

I have been thinking about how I am going to respond to this project based in the research which I have already collected.

I think that when it comes to the general human diet and regarding the positives and the negatives when altering it to alternative food sources, there becomes a lot of different facts and opinions. 

However based from personal experience and based on the research which I have 
(and have not) included into my blog posts, I can confirm that my project will safely favour on the side of plant based diets, and how this promotes the reservation of both human and non human lives, including the reservation of our National Health service and our planet.


I believe that one of the biggest factors when it comes to consumerism and food, is not only how food tastes.. but how it looks

and not necessarily the look of food itself..  but the packaging it comes in.

To support this statement I will create a questionnaire which will contain a series of questions to which will provide me with qualitative primary research, Along with this I plan to collect extracts of secondary research from various trustworthy sources to build up extra evidence to support the above statement.


How exactly do I want to respond to this project?

I would like to create packaging design as my response, this packaging design will be a for a product that most people would consume every day. Which could be anything from a cereal box, to a jam jar or maybe a milk carton.

My plan will be to design something which promotes the idea of 'Alternative eating' or 'Alternative food'. The design would need to stand out enough that it becomes more visually successful compared to other similar consumable products.
I believe that the best place to start will be to take a look at other Vegan products or any other products that are consumable foods which have not been made at the expense of another animal. By comparing and contrasting the different designs of products I will build up an idea of what designs work best and which ones do not work as well. 

OUGD505 - SB02 - Further discussion into animal products and human health

How long would you last in the gym compared to someone who's diet was devoid of animal based products?

The answer.. is that you wouldn't stand much of a chance

Why? - High levels of consuming meat has a damaging impact on the cardiovascular system. Which means you would feel tired a lot more often. The body would quickly become out of breath compared to someone who eats less or no amounts of animal meat.

A general meat based diet will mean that your body fat percentage will be fairly higher and if you care about your diet more than the average person then, it leave very little leeway for other non meat indulgences. Meat and fish consumption has a much higher chance of making you sick, the natural and non natural elements/chemicals in meat leads to a higher chance of food poisoning and internal infection, resulting in more trips to the doctors and more medical treatment including the need for antibiotics.

eliminating the consumption of an animal based diet means that there will be a much less exposure to carriers of bacteria.

Antibiotics

Animals that are grown to be killed and eaten given a lot of antibiotics to keep the alive and growing to large sizes. Animal antibiotics are different to human antibiotics.. 

however there are similar chemicals that are in animal medicine which 'supergerms' become resistant to, that are also in human medicine. 
The typical human antibiotic contains 44% penicillin, which is also present in animal antibiotics at 6% along with other similar chemicals. The irresponsible use of antibiotics has resulted in humans with higher meat based diets building up a stronger antibiotic resistance

Some extracts above - courtesy of bustle.com

OUGD505 - SB02 - The consumption of Animal based foods and how this relates to health

I will begin to discuss how the consumption of food derived from animals (mainly meats) has an negative impact on the body compared to that of a diet where most substitutes are derived from plants. 

The world Health organisation declared that processed meat is a carcinogen, which means consuming it greatly increases the risk colon and rectum cancer.. (not a pleasant thought). But should we be surprised? processed meats are practically created by machines from the bits and pieces of animals that no one wants..

Now I believe that in this day and age, people in general are a lot more informed about the risks of consuming processed foods, however people still eat it regardless of the harm the un-natural food does to the body, but why? - I guess food that tingles the taste buds will always mean more to people than their own health... but that's humans for you.

Eating even smaller amounts of meat may seem like a good idea (and it is) but the consumption of meat will absolutely have long term impacts on you're health.

Cancer Research UK

The evidence of meat increasing the risk of cancer is as strong as ever. Cancer Research UK posted about this subject and even provided a chart to show the threat level that meat has on the body.

(CRUK) have been in the battle to fight cancer for many years, I believe that the information they produce that relates to physical health holds a lot of truth, and should have somewhat of an impact on anyone who takes in the information.

 Meat is devoid of fibre and nutrients which are needed to fight against so many bacterial and viral infections. When you are ill, your body should be able to fight off anything, even without the use antibiotics. Animal protein comes with a large amount of saturated fats and carcinogenic compounds. So.. if you eat a lot of meat on a daily basis then it is guaranteed that you will be consuming well over the limit of un-natural fat. (which is the kind of fat your body has difficulty getting rid of - Hence the name).

OUGD505 - SB02 - Ideas and discussion of the human diet/health and food alternatives

My project for SB02 will consist of a concentrration on the subject of food alternatives. I would like top create a visual which represents the idea of 'aalternative food' or 'alternative eating'. 

I will begin the project by researching into how the consumption of meat and sumialr products negatively impacts the planet. 

When animals are raised to be eaten by humans, a lot of land is needed and this means precious water and soil are lost in the process, Trees are destroyed to create land for grazing animals and factories. 

The untreated animal waste then goes onto polluting the earth, rivers, and streams.

The union of concerned scientists has listed meat eating as the second biggest environmental hazard facing the earth (the first being fossil fuel vehicles).

According to a report published by the Worldwatch insitute, 51% of greenhouse gas emissions are caused by animal agriculture. 

Cows are an excellent example to use..

 To produce 1 lb of flesh, a cow needs to consume 16 lbs of vegetation. 2,500 gallons of water is needed to produce 1 lb of meat, however only 25 gallons of water is needed to produce a lb of wheat. One burger (the kind you would probably order at McDonald's) uses enough fossil fuel to provide a small car with 20 miles of fuel. 

--------

Just over 80% of the planets corn and 95% of oats are fed to livestock. The worlds cattle alone today consumes a mass amount of food. The same mass of food is equal to the same caloric needs of 8.7 billion people, which is more than the entire human population. (so It is funny to think that in some countries people are starving to death.)

If were were to stop this kind of usage then this would free up masses of grain and would massively reduce pressure on land. 

(Above information provided by peta.com)

During my research I came across a website called GreenAge

It discussed issues with meat based dietes and how the production and usage of animals creates long term impacts to so amny diffetent aspects of the planet, comapred to that of a plant based diet. Information which links meat based idets to CO2 emmisions on the planet was quite interesting. 

A meat-based diet is responsible for 7.2kg of CO2 emissions, vegetarian diets are responsible for about 3.8 of CO2 per day and vegan diets are 2.9kg per day. The difference between the 3 main diets and their impact on CO2 is staggering. It shows that many people on the planet could well be very unaware of how their diet can lead to long term impacts. 

DEFORISTATION

Deforistation is a concern becasue a lot of flat land is needed to grow animals for eating. When land is changed so much certain species of plants and animals can no longer survive in the same spaces. It also means less trees which then impacts the ability to absorb toxins from our air. 

The damage that is being done to the planet now will have a massive impact on future generations.

OUGD505 - SB02 - Intro

My project for SB02 will be based on an globally effecting issue which I myself find relevant. You will se below a snapshot of the brief.

The goal of this project will be choose and carry out extensive research into a globally effecting subject of my choice. At the same time as understanding why this certain issue, the subject must also be to some extent interesting to myself, which will enable me to produce a quiality level of repsonsive designs.

I have already has some difficulty in choosing a subject for this project, as there are many different issues that are currently happening in the world and a lot of those issues I persoanlly have strong opionions about.

NHS?

The NHS has recently lost marginally to a winter crisis and the NHS is still to some extent continuing to suffer due to lack of staff and funding, as well as an increase in sick patients. During winter, I found myself clicking on BBC news and other relevant sources much more than usual, which was due to my interest in the subject of the NHS and it's status. 

The NHS crippled unter the pressure this winter and I find that not just a national interest regarding it'splace in the UK.. but as many individuals from all over the world visit the country to access out NHS service, I believe that the issue is a global one.

The Consumption of Meat?

The modern day diet is something that I think has threatened the health of many people on our planet. The consumption of meat and other animal dervied products not only negatively imopacts the health of people, but also negatively imopacts our agriculture and our plannet. 

Over a year ago, I changed my diet from a very high animal based food consumption to a very low animal based food consumption, after several months, both my mental and ohysucal health improved greatly. I believe that there is a lot of information and stigma regarding the use and consumption of animal based products. The fact is that food and products that are dervided from animal agriculture cause so much more harm compared to the benefits they offer. Which means that I consider the subject of diet and veganism a very relevent and globally effecting subject. 

I believe that the two subject matters above are most relevent against other possibly subject matters.

OUGD505 - Research - Transforming the sound of New Age Music to visual images

After some extensive research into NAM, I realised that I needed to know how exacxtly I would create visual images based from the sound of NAM. 

I figured from my research that these visuals would need to be created by the emotions/feelings that the sounds they produce. 

So to take an example, the first feeling I get when I listen to NAM is happiness, and I would imagine happiness to look like circles, lots of them, some bursting some not, some with color and some just outlines of circles, maybe the circles would be moving around also, bumping into each other.

Another feeling is calmness and I imagine calmess to look like soft flowing lines, some of the lines may bend slightly or curve off into very loose spirals, some lines may the thicker than other, but all of these different lines would be moving in the same direction.

after listening to many different songs from within the New Age Genre, I decided to base my reponsive designs on one song. 

Only Time - By Enya

This song is my favourite because of how it makes me feel. It makes me feel happy and calm, especially in times of stress or when im a little flustered, this song seems to have the ability to reverse those negative feelings on a much stronger scale comapred to a different song within the same genre.

Enya herself has made many albums which are filled with songs that produce the same effects, I have taken some time to listen to most of her work from the earliest to the latest.

Below I have posyted files of more research and development.

As you can see I have collected images and shapes which are relevent to the only time by enya. 

As you can see after researching some relevent shapes I then moved onto finding these shapes which have been printed onto t-shirs (which is the medium I will be using for this proejct) In the photos above you can see that I have created some of my own T-shirt designs and used the researched images to create designs which express the style of Enya's music.

I plan to continue working on these designs and I will contimue to refer back to my reserach images for reference.

OUGD505 - SB01 - New Age Music Research - Brian Eno

Brian Eno  is an Ambient music composer form which started in the 1970's is one of the most importannt musicians and producers in the history of modern music. The chances of the average person hearing brian enos music at some point in their lives is very high, even if that person doesn't even know who Brian Eno is. There is a lot of famous music in the world that has either been created or heavily influenced by him.

Eno is often considered the father of ambient music. What really earned him a reputation was his 1978 album 'Music for Airports' It was an album that really made ambient music a strong reality, however Eno made several other albums that defined the Genre of New Age and Ambient Music.

OUGD505 - SB01 - New Age Music Research - Tangerine Dream

When lookign further into the origin of NAM, I came across some informaiton which seemed to be an staement about a huge turning point in NAM. Tangering Dream is en electronic music band, which founded in 1967 and are considered to be pioneers as well as playing an important role in the development of electronic music.

Tangerine Dream was founded by Edgar Froese. The band virtually replaced guitars and drums for synthisisers back in 1973 and since then they have develpoed sophisticated elecronic sounds that are wordless, atmospheric music that grows from the idea of rock but by no means follows the form of rock music.

The reason that Tangerine dream were considered pioneers in the New Age indistry will stem mostly from the fact that they experimented and created art with sinthisisers when the tools were very low key still in their early days. There work within the world of dreamy electronic music created feelings in ither people and inspired more people to also create using the same tools that Tangerine Dream had created.

OUGD505 - SB01 - New Age Music Research 03

I have continued research into the New Age Movement and how this cretaed the Genre 'NAM'.

The 1970’s showed that large numbers of people were practicing crystal healing, yoga, macrobiotic diets, astrology, and many more alternative medicines. 

These alternative medicines needed a soundtrack; a kind of music that was much less aggressive than rock, which would be able to serve as a soothing background for New Age healing activities

During the 1960’s and 70’s, there was a huge amount of experimental and electronic music that was highly influential for New Age Music. In Germany around the same time - experimental music flourished within the (so-called) Kraut rock scene. In particular, the synthesiser-based electronic music of Tangerine dream served as an important influence on what would become NAM. 

This genre is also known as Cosmic music which is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in Germany in the 1960’s. 

The name Karutrock was given to experimental German bands who’s music drew from sources such as psychedelic rock, avant-guard, electronic music, funk, minimalism, jazz improvisation and other world music styles.

OUGD505 - New Age Music Artist 'RuneStone' - Research

After viewing and listening to various NAM artists, I came across a group called 'RuneStone' Their music sounded quite interesting, So I continued my research into their origin and work. As retro as everything seemed.

Runestone is the name of a New Age music Group, made up by Chris Green and Robert Fenner (New Age musicians). Both artists are established  multi-instrumentalists which in their albums include the use of keyboards, guitars, mandolins, native american flute, world percussion, tibetan bowls and the gong. Which means the duo focus heavily on eastern born instruments. The duo or Runstone as they are named first appeared on the New Age music scene in 1993 and has since produced a catalog of eleven albums.

Runestone have come across to be quite a traditional New Age band, as in the sounds they they create come across very stowic.

Below is an example of so,e of their work, which I found quite relevent.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=video&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjs4Kn37eHaAhVKIMAKHaTiB4YQtwIIKTAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DX0ixJ12eDeQ&usg=AOvVaw2KG2p870ASleb6y9CYQ-Yj

I then took a little look on their websit and came across their vast catalog of music, which shows me that these two artists have been creating music for quite some time.

Below a snapshot of their website (not the easist no navigate but the difference comapred to todays websites which are so clean and finished, it is quite a pullback in time, which I find apropriate for the subject)

OUGD505 - SB01 - New Age Music 'Enya' - Research

After delving into some of the origin of NAM I felt it only be apropriate to research some of the best NAM artists. There is one artist in particular that I have listened to in previous years named 'Enya'. I have always loved her music however, I never knew that her music was considered 'New Age' So I was quite surprised to learn that I had been listening to a form of NAM all this time.

ENYA

A song names Orinocco flow was created by Enya which featured in her album “watermark” which was released in 1988. 

Which was an instant success because of it was unlike anyone had ever heard. Enya had a clear, steady and slightly haunting voice which immediately appealed to the world and made people want more. (My personal opinion is that she is that her voice is very similar to that of a slow moving river, very calming yet amplifying and invigorating).

Enya’s music is often classified as world music and Celtic New age, Although Enya herself refuses to accept these labels to her music and insists her music to be described as ‘just Enya’, (however the sound of her music creates the same internal feelings and emotions to that of NAM). 

Enya was one of nine children and grew up in a very musical family, Music was as important as the air she breathed.

At and early age, Enya would sign in her mothers church up until she joined her siblings in a band named ‘Clannad’ in 1980. Enya then went onto meeting producer Nicky Ryan and his wife Roma Ryan and then in 1982 formed a trio which is responsible for the brand ‘Enya’

(Below paragaraph courtessy of Marcome.com) 

“Success followed with albums such as Shepherd Moons (1991), The Memory of Trees (1995), A Day Without Rain (1995), And Winter Came… (2008), featuring Enya singing in English, Latin, Irish, Welsh, Spanish, French and even J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictitious languages in “Lothlórien” (1991). No wonder that she was chosen to sing and perform the songs “Aníron” and “May It Be” for the movie Lord of the Rings, the latter of which was nominated for an Academy Award.’

OUGD505 - SB01 - New Age Music Origin Research 02 + 02.5

Below I discuss more about the origin of the New Age Movement

Theosophy, New thought and Transcendentalism among many others attempted to incorporate the general idea of Buddhism and Hinduism with western mystical ideas and cultures, many new religeons argued for a correspondense between conciousnes and the physical world.

In short meaning; How one thought and felt had consequences in the real world

By the beginning of the 20th century, new religions that utilised techniques drawn from eastern religions that utilised techniques drawn from eastern religions, such as meditation or alternative medicine - Spiritual healing which was spreading across the united states.

The 1960’s saw a huge increase in the amount of alternative spiritualities - baby boomers (people who were born in the years during the marked increase of births following the second world war) - they were disappointed or disillusioned in the idea of the conservative American culture, who then sought spiritual fulfilment outside of Judo-Christian lifestyles.

How did the 'alternative practices link to New Age Music?

Research 02.5

As people began seeking other fufillment through the practice of spiritual healing and mental traquility. People soon began to relaise that a certain type of sound was needed to enhance the proccess of these alternative practices. 

This is when New Age Music really became a 'thing', as it was around the same time that a lot of artists were experiemnting with electronically produced music.

Rock Music

How did the experimentation of electric music and rock music form the prominant creation of New Age Music?

Muscisions and music groups such as tangerine dream created and used electric instruments that would produce beautiful electronic sounding music, which stemmed from the creativness of soft rock. These creative sounds grew and grew to form collections of songs that were used in the practice of alternative medicines and from there new artisits formed who created their own marks and stories in the genre of New Age Music.

OUGD505 - SB01 - New Age Music Origin Research

After searching through a vast collection of Micro Genre's archived on the website Everynoiseatonce.com I came across a slightly familiar genre of music called New Age 

Music. 

New Age Music is defined as ‘Artistic inspiration’ which as the genre ‘new age’ is supposed to provide the listener, feelings of peace, calmness, relaxation and optimism.

It is also the genre of music which is used very often in mediation, massage, yoga and similar kinds of relaxing and energising sessions.

New Age music concentrates more on the feelings it produces rather than the sound or instruments it uses.

The creation of NAM was to provide ambient sounds to provide certain feelings. It does this by creating electronic sounding forms and usually, the instruments heard are the piano, flute, guitar, acoustics, and a wide variety of nonwestern instruments that have the ability to produce natural sounds.  

NAM Emerged as a distinctive and realisitc Genre in the 1970's, however the genre became most popular in the 1980's and 90's. 

To understand the significance of NAM, it becomes useful to understand NAM within the larger subject of the New Age Movement. The NAMovement is a loose conglomeration of alternative spiritualities and metaphysical religeons that emerged or became relaities in the 60's - However the roots of New Age Music go back even further..

OUGD505 - SB02 - Milk Carton Design research 02

Following on from my research I have decided to go ahead and base my future design from the research image which I have placed below.

Out of all the designs I was drawn to this one the most. I like the colour and the delicate design. My favourite part is the white designs on the front of the packaging, they contrats so well against the black and I feel like if the product was placed on a shelf in the supermarket, it would draw in a lot of attention.

I will look into some more deigns that have a similar black and white style, as I believe that the design above would be the most effective. I can see from the image that they have kept the rest of the layout similar to that of a usualy milk carton which I think has a really nice touch. 

These designs above, are a collection of several different products which have been designed with black and white being the change of change compairing to the design of more mainstream products. I love these designs because the black and the white is so striking and really draws in attention towards what the product actually is. I see it in a way that the product is not trying to hide under a sea of complicated colours.

I attained this image because I liked how it displayed a selection of branded products which features the black and white colour use throughout the collection.

I think something as simple as sugar sachaes can have a big impact when it comes to hospitality, they are small but can be very complimetrary to their emviroment depending on how they are designed.

I think these must be like the pringles food, only a premium version. I think that it's a premium product stright away because of the black and white, it sets the mind going stright away "if the can looks premium then so must be the food inside and the ingredients they are made with".

A pretty simple image, yet stll very effective, it's not very often that you see a carton looking like this. I think it's because the mind is so used to seeing product with colourful designs and bold titles being paired with slogans and information about the product on the front of the packaging.

I would like to think that this is a bag of coffee, which has been designed with only black and white. I really like it, because it has sort of like a rustic vibe, there are a lot of different typefaces going on here too which seems to work pretty well - Again I think that using min imal colour gives leaway to being able to experiment more with type and shaping.

The above design is very simple which I love, It looks to be made from metal so I can imagine that the packaging it'self would reflect light which would look very nice considering it is balck and white. I also like how I can easily read the text on the product even though it has been edited to look fairly diffetrent than what the original type probably was. It's very simple and stright forward.

I'm not entirley sure what this product is, maybe it's a game box - but I like the design and the domiannce of the text on the packaging, the typeface looks very simialr to the one that the TV show 'Amelrican Horror Story' uses, which is pretty cool.

I believe that this is cosmentic packaging, maybe a collection? if so I think the use of blackand white works very well here as a group, I like that the packaging design os a little odd, with the fact you can't tell what some of the large letters are. A slightly edgy design even.

I really liked this Coffee Bag deisgn. So simple and effective and it creates this sort of idea that this product is premium just based on the front design of the packaging. The use of large text fills up most of the space which is quite clever. The logo alone is a sure give away that this is a caffinated product.

The above is one of my favourite examples, very modern and stylish. It's diffetrent to the carton designs that you would be used to, it seems a little metric also, probably because of the typeface. I find the image use very striking, I can tell that the images represent a milk glass from different angles.