Leeds Arts University Repository (CREST)
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446 research outputs found
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Love Paper
No full textThe output is an artefact, an illustrated book commissioned by a leading children’s’ book publisher in the UK. Research process: The premise of the book was to create a modern collection of illustrations and co-ordinating surface pattern designs aimed at a contemporary market. There are several illustration themes running through the book based on popular childrens’ narratives. The artefact was developed through technical investigation and documentation of AVA CAD/CAM software and exploring new digital methods using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Design exploration of Hughes’ practices occurred in collaboration with industry partners as a direct response to this software. Research insights: The research identified how illustration and co-ordinating surface pattern designs could work together to create a modern collection that would appeal to a contemporary audience. There has been a resurgence towards utilising traditional drawing methodologies which and then explored further through digital solutions. Graduate designers need to utilise all these skills to meet industry standards. Further insights into Hughes’ practice considers how these methods can be employed in design education. Dissemination: The artefact was showcased at the world’s leading professional children’s book fair, La Fiera del Libro per Ragazzi in Italy April 2018. It was also presented at The Textile Society Conference, Manchester in April 2019
The reluctant learner: encouraging engagement with CGI animation tools
No full textWorking in higher education is amazing, sharing accumulated knowledge and skills that will help to shape young minds and attitudes, and ensuring that students are prepared to enter their chosen industry or profession upon graduation is a gratifying career. There is always a downside though, I don’t mean the endless administrative tasks which mount up over the course of a semester, in this context I refer to the reluctant learner. The course on which I teach is a broad programme that encourages students to explore their options before committing focus towards the animation medium in which they would prefer to specialise, my area of expertise is 3D modelling and animation. The complexity of most 3D animation software solutions can raise barriers for potential learners and initial enthusiasm for learning often turns to frustration as layers of menus, unfamiliar tools and new terminology is laid before them. It is our responsibility to offer all learners the opportunity to experience a variety of available animation mediums and to facilitate student development so that they can fulfil and hopefully enjoy the tasks that we set them. I would like to talk about my practice, through which I aim to ensure that all of my students appreciate how the tools of 3D modelling and animation can be useful to, and applied across, the gamut of animation mediums, and the methods that can be employed to engage learners with complex software so that they not only understand but enjoy the experience
Me & You
No full textThe output is an exhibition, ‘Me & You’, curated by Gaffney, and featuring the work of Linda Schwab.
Research process: The exhibition is a curated display of material outputs from Gaffney’s artistic research that defines a particular approach in sculptural practice as ‘Embodied Dreaming’. This making approach is informed by the psychoanalytical writings of Christopher Bollas. The artefacts, individually and as a group, demonstrate the traditional sculptural processes of modelling and casting to be pertinent manual techniques for contemporary identity formations that have class, gender and multigenerational ethnicity in their scope. The source material for life modelling was personal family photographs in which Gaffney featured aged 5 or 6 years old, that provided her with a register of classed and gendered subjectivity, situation, place and an internalised knowledge from her lived experience. Gaffney used casting processes to simultaneously predetermine the production and reproduction of objects identified in the photographs. Casting enabled the systematic investigation into the selected entities which both established knowledge of them and produced material conclusions.
Research insights: The exhibition contributes to the histories of sculpture in Britain, a phenomenon that Gaffney argues has no register of identity formation within it. The ‘Embodied Dreaming’ approach embeds the psychic life of the maker within the action of making, bringing together critical and analytical practices with action based, manual processes in a way that has relevance to contemporary identity questions. Gaffney asked questions about how sculpture can convey what it is like to inhabit a woman’s body as she, the researcher, knows it, which is differently positioned from the masculine contributions to the history of figuration that constitute the European and British sculptural canon from Rodin to the present day. Dissemination: The research was disseminated at Dean Clough Galleries, Halifax, 17 February- 20 May 2018
Garment label design and companion information to communicate fashion sustainability issues to young consumers
No full textWith the rise of fashion consumption and a clear lack of promotional input by retailers on the issues of sustainable fashion, this research shows that there is little awareness particularly among young adults on the issues of fashion sustainability. Therefore, a clear need to inform consumers on how to utilize, care for and dispose of fashion items is necessary to make the important changes to the planet’s fashion waste issues. To this end, this research explores ways of how fashion brands can communicate a more sustainable way of consuming fashion to young consumers in the UK. Focus groups were conducted with the objective of identifying the main issues relating to fashion consumption including the lack of awareness and disposal of garments. These were followed by a collaborative workshop involving young consumers, where a fashion brand was created to educate consumers through information and garment label design solutions using innovative communication strategies. To ascertain the validity of these design solutions, usability testing was then conducted, which identified further design improvements. Although conducted with a small set of participants, this collaborative and user-centered research is well positioned to propose innovative solutions to communicate research-based design solutions on how to communicate, educate and change the perception of sustainable fashion among young consumers in the U
Dreamers
No full textThe text in this immersive installation refers to the “Windrush” and “Dreamers” communities in the UK and the US respectively, whose citizenship has been under threat of revocation by current ruling governments. The use of optical illusions demonstrates the fugitive nature of truth, by aligning the inherent biases in human visual perception with implicit social, political and racial biases in our news media. The text is installed to replicate a visual distortion illusion in which the segments of different colour text trigger a visual stimulus that is misinterpreted by the brain, leading to the perception that the columns of text and curved. The illusion a of crooked line signifies a broken promise to the Windrush and Dreamers communities. Davin Watne and Dawn Woolley work collaboratively, under the name Hard Stop, to produce art interventions that question notions of truth in contemporary society
Double vision
No full textThe output is an exhibition of paintings and drawings representing two contrasting environments. Together, these works seek to explore the potential for re-presentation to provoke new readings of place. The notion of ‘double vision’ examines the differences between space and place, the phenomenological (bodily and perceptual) experience of place, and the relationship between place and its re-emplacement through drawing and painting. Research Process: In gallery one there were graphite drawings presenting recently cultivated agricultural edge lands, made through the iterative layering of marks. They were made after extensive visits to site, documenting these visits through sketches and photographs. These pieces collectively entitled ‘Noema’ reference Husserl’s ideas on judgement, sense and meaning through the act of perception (1913). In relation to this, these drawings sought to investigate the real and perceived experience of being on site and making the work, with the perception of the work as both medium and image. In gallery two there were paintings of the Merrion Centre, a Brutalist inspired 1960s shopping precinct in Leeds. The Centre was of special cultural interest as the site of the first official synagogue in Leeds, opened in 1846 (Fraser, 2019). The paintings act to triangulate, archival research in the Centre (TCS archive), online forums and site visits with theoretical discourses regarding place, representation and memory. Research Insights: The findings of this research suggest that such places are ‘anthropological place’ (Auge, 2008). a multi-layered palimpsest of past and present constructed by those that inhabit them. Furthermore, it is suggested that through painting place, paintings can become “a place of presentation for this world” (Casey,2002). Dissemination: The research was disseminated through the exhibition at the Studio One Gallery, London, 2 – 11 March 2018
A device suitable for protecting and / or allowing cleaning of a bike and / or vehicle component and method of use thereof.
No full textThe Brake Shield is an innovative new product for cleaning and maintaining the moving parts of a bicycle drive train and is the only one of its kind.
It has a simple yet effective design of a polypropylene barrier that sits between the spokes and the cassette to protect your disc brakes and wheel rims whilst cleaning and/or lubricating of the gearing and drive train is undertaken. The nature of the product allows this difficult and unpleasant task to be performed in a quick, tidy and efficient manner.
Many people just ignore this part of their bike; they put up with a muddied cassette and chain, either cleaning them periodically, maybe monthly, or just replacing them when they become unworkable which is wasteful and unsustainable. With the Brake Shield 'little and often' cleaning is made simpler and easier. The Brake Shield's innovative tray catches all the cleaning fluid, dirt and oil, allowing this dirty task to be undertaken anywhere without making a mess.
A more formal abstract taken from the Patent Application Publication:
A device is provided for protecting, allowing cleaning, servicing and / or lubrication of one or more components of a bike or vehicle in use. The device is formed from at least one blank of material including a first portion arranged to act as a shield element so as to at least partially shield at least one component of the vehicle or bike in use, and at least a second portion. The second portion includes at least one wall joined to the first portion by at least one fold line. The at least one wall and fold line are arranged such that when the second portion is assembled and / or erected in use it defines a tray or container portion joined to the first portion
The art of following instructions
No full textThe output is an artefact comprising a series of twelve photographs.
Research Process: Learning is an active process rather than a passive one and constructivism proposes that people construct meaning successfully through active engagement with the world through experience. Having the capacity to understand and remember spatial relationships amongst visual objects through instructions is one important means of successfully achieving a desired outcome. This project starts from the presumption that people with poor spatial ability find it difficult to follow static instructions, whereas when using animated instructions this limitation is not found or less pronounced. Origami is the art of folding paper to create three-dimensional objects. Initially one must follow a set of instructions to achieve success. These instructions come in written form or static visualisations, and more recently, dynamic (or animated) visualisations. Allen documents her own process of learning this way through photography. Research Insights: This auto-ethnographic study uses the process of making Origami as a vehicle for reflecting on the artists own navigation of daily tasks and puts into action her own shortcomings for understanding instructions identified through her attempts to follow static visualisations. Successful outcomes were only realised through the following of dynamic visualisations evidencing the successes and failures through photographic documentation. The multiple modes of representation and instruction have been explored here through Constructivism theory drawing on the shifts in instructional strategies promoting a sense of personal agency. Dissemination: This output has been part of the Make Good 1 exhibition at Leeds Arts University. September 2018
You’re Doing Amazing Sweetie
No full textThe output is an exhibition of paintings by Lydia Blakeley which address the banality of pop and celebrity culture. Blakeley’s artistic practice explores contemporary vernacular culture through traditional painting. Following her first solo show, Leisure, at Leeds Arts University Vernon Street Gallery (2017), Blakeley returns with a new body of work featuring paintings based on the banal and/or uncanny nature of celebrity homes and reality television. By drawing upon icons of celebrity pop-culture, Blakeley’s exquisite painting’s offer a satirical commentary
A design driven approach to 3D printing textiles from recycled polyester
No full textPolyester is aligned to the industrial cycle and as such needs to be preserved as a recyclable resource. (Goldsworthy, 2009). In the last 50 years alone plastic production has increased by 500% and when discarded often ends up in the rivers and sea creating ‘plastic soup’. Finding new ways to recycle this into new things is infinitely better than creating new as it saves on CO2 emissions and the ever decreasing resource of oil it starts out as C.A. Griffiths et al (2016) noted this means that the design stage must consider constraints of time and cost and to furthermore consider sustainability and the need to seek to reduce scrap. Due to the nature of 3D printing, it only uses the material needed for a product with exceptions of small supporting pieces during additive manufacturing, rather than the subtraction approach in manufacturing which involves controlled material removal but involves a lot of waste. 3D printing has been known as a throw away fad and one which can produce lots of waste itself as with both novice and amateur makers there are often mistakes which end up in the bin. While, plastics are still recycled at low rates in centralized recycling facilities, distributed plastic recycling to produce filament for 3DP could help increased this rate at a lower economic and environ-mental cost (Kreiger et al., 2014). However, at present the market in raw materials for 3DP remains highly concentrated. Even though 3DP plastic is processed into filament by a range of both small and large companies, feedstock is supplied by a handful of large polymer producers (Despeisse, M., et al 2016) There are number of stake holders already involved in this unique area, from the reprocessing companies to the manufacturers of the filament and the grinders of the virgin material, fashion brands, 3D printing companies and charitable foundations involved in sustainability issues regarding plastics and finally, designers. This paper seeks to outline these stake holders in detail and showcase the current work of the researcher where by in developing the ‘2 Way Closed Loop Cycle’, new textile structures have been designed and printed using recycled polyester. Using a design driven approach the structures of existing 3D Printed textiles were analyzed and new structures were designed based on the properties of the recycled material. From a subject only in its infancy, the researcher aims to show the potential of such an experimental idea and how it could change future maker markets and give the fashion industry another route to take in order to close the loop