I am Jing Dong, I go by Jamie. I major in Design and Technology. I am think about transfer to other department and minor in music recently. I pretty like minimalism and Swiss designs and I always trying to turn complex concepts into simple forms.
For the final project in studio, we were first asked to find two artists that we are interested in and do some basic research about both of them. I chose Shigeo Fukuda and Eiko Ojala as my research artist because they are both minimalist graphic designers and pretty like the way they convey their concept and layout their works. Then we have to think about have to integrate the idea or the concept of these two artists’ work into one 2D work and one 3D work. The 2D work and 3D work should be combined together and there should be a transformation between the 2D and 3D form. For me, I find more inspirations in 2D works in Fukuda’s work because they are visually flatter. I find the use of negative space is clean in Fukuda’s work so I applied a neat negative space in my 2D work. I like the paper cutting elements in Ojala’s work so I applied it in my 3D work and it helps to make the transformation natural and smooth. Then we should carry out some further researches about our research artists on school library and other resources. In my research, I found both artists used some concentric layout of the same pattern in their work and I integrated it in both of my works. I was think about transferring a book into a paper cutting, but my research artist’s inspired me to make my transformation as simple as possible so I applied the most direct way. I added the some origami fish because it was a tradition from Japan, where Fukuda came from. The 2D work shows a sense of serenity. But after the transformation, the state of fish started to change, they turned to explore the cave and I wanted to convey courage and curiosity, which I am experiencing, in this transformation.
2D form
3D form
Fukuda and Ojala’s works share some same similarities, their color scheme, layout, and use of element are sometimes very familiar and gives the audience a comfortable sense. What makes their works different is the cultural and historical context. So I came up with the research question of “How do Shigeo Fukuda’s and Eiko Ojala’s work differentiate in the cultural and historical context of their works?” My thesis statement has been changed for many times during my research and writing process and the final version is:”The national aesthetics in their own country impacts their design language, the skills and technologies available in their era give limitations to what they can achieve in their designs, and the social issues in their era have some explicit connections with the cultural and historical context of their work.“
While doing the researches, I looked for the information I need on New school library (online), encyclopedia, blogs, comments from other designers, online articles, and researches carried out by professional designers and sociologists. Basically, I looked for data that support my statement and other people’s comment on my research artists. I looked for persuasive and concise definitions on encyclopedia and other people’s research paper because they are reliable sources.
This project teaches me the importance of persistence and making choice. I have to give up something that I have been working on for a long time in order to reach a better outcome. Sometimes long working time does not mean good outcomes so we have to make a good and detailed planning before we go into it. I am deeply affected by minimalism so I might be a little bit intolerant to those complicated things. But in the exploration and preparation stage, I can’t avoid making and experimenting this kind of things. I found some resources will really enhance our efficiency, for example, the online school library, because it can automatically write the bibliography for me. We should also utilize our resources. Our school provide free tutor on writing and I think they really helped a lot with my citation and paragraphing.
