PROJECT PROPOSAL

Fashion and style has always been an interest to me. I consistently research the upcoming styles and what’s trending around me from my peers. In the Fashion Industry the AW and SS are abbreviations of autumn-winter and spring-summer. They use them to update society with the upcoming seasonal-trend. It’s a modern and short way to articulate a new topic. This method inspired me to think of my own title for this magazine. After experimenting with words that relate to students, college and teens. I came up with the abbreviation CS/15. CS/15 is easy to say, its contemporary and memorable- it stands for College Students of 2015. I think it will make the viewers understand simply what this Magazine will be about.

I want this Final Specialist Project to reflect my skills and what has inspired me through the past two years of doing this Art and Design BTEC course. Not only that but also expressing my personal achievements and interests.

I intend to create my own magazine. A magazine that has an insight of everything about College Students, from cliques, to what the new up-coming trends are. The layout theme of this magazine will relate to Indie-style magazines. Indie-style Magazines are independent, they are created and designed by using sources from the public, they explore youth, pop-culture, style, music, art and fashion. I want to ask my peers about their life as a college student, how they think, what they do and what they know in our culture.

I will ask to take their photo, to display their unique style and to ask them only a few questions about themselves. A few questions will be enough because I want the magazine to be more visual than contextual. Too much writing will be tedious and I will lose the viewers connection to the magazine.

I want this to be genuine, using real life people and to signify their identity. I intend to make this magazine fun, enjoyable and visually exciting.

As well as a Magazine, I will create my own video of college students, to create that understanding of how they act in front of a camera and who they actually are as an individual. I will explore movies that are about adolescence, colleges and the typical cliques. The movies will help me get ideas on how to construct the video.

For inspiration and contextual references, I have researched indie-Magazine such as the V-magazine; ILoveFake; WAD; i-D; LOVE; The Gentlewoman and Wonderland. They are specifically for our generation, to communicate with us by introducing the new trends and everything modern in the social media. Other artists such as Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott and Rankin are both designers and art directors who create visually artistic videos.

These videos have inspired me to make more than just a film, an art piece.  Other Art Directors such as Paul Broadens, Jenny Eneqvest, Matt Wiley, Graham RounthWaite and Peter Stitson have all encouraged me to make the magazine layout as contemporary and defined as possible. The book ‘ Magculture-new magazine design by Jeremy Leslie’ has been an ideal source of information to find Directors and designers that I like and that I find visually engaging.

I plan to first research in depth for ideas and inspiration- to find the right photography skills, the colours I personally like, the current colour palette, the modern layouts and the ideal fonts. I have made a blog to consistently update my thoughts and inspiration for the Final Project.

http://beccyfsp.blogspot.co.uk.

A blog will be a connection to my generation. It will be a way of communicating with the online social-media, which is a prominent element of the 21^st century. It is a way to express and promote you in a more modern sense. My blog will help me stay on-track with my theme and what changes need to be done in order to make this project as effective as possible.

Mood boards will give a visual guide to how this will be presented. I will add fonts, colour, photography and different textures of paper.

As soon as I have made the right choices for the magazine, I will start taking photos of my peers and videoing them.  Once Videoing them I can start my Film. The film will consist of both video and artistic photography. I plan to record the students talking. Adding their voices will strengthen the connection between the students and the audience.

To achieve the artistic element in my video I will use artists as references, such as; Bjork (Hyper ballad) This music video has a combination of layers, animation, colours that gives it that alluring feel. It has a sense of movement and more than just a three-dimensional response. Bjork created another music video called unravel- this video is elegant, extraordinary and only makes you want to watch this repeatedly. In some ways it’s inspiring by the colours, her voice and the delicate movement. My goal is to create a video that has these elements.

The artist Yoko Ono created a performance video. What I liked about this art piece was that it was genuine and ‘raw’. The camera wasn’t straight; there was noise in the background and a lot of movement by the audience. This creates that connection as if you were there, watching her. The viewpoint and that relation with the film is what I hope to achieve in my video by really communicating with the students. Not only that but also how authentic and original the video is.

Bjork has an artistic element and theme in her videos, she will give me the direction of creating that artistic view of my video. Yoko Ono will reflect the genuine and originality of my video.

To advance this magazine I will add my handwriting and my drawing skills (I intend to draw portraits of the students faces) Portraits will give that relation to the viewer and the drawing. I will experiment with pen, charcoal and pencil. I will have to use these mediums in order to understand what works effectively and what will compliment the design and layout of the magazine.

The reason for making this project about college and students is because it is a personal interest and in some ways it is because I am not in a specific clique or group- I am more of an outsider but this gives me the advantage to see my peers in a different light. I envy the confident cliques that walk past me, I envy their freeness and how comfortable they are around their friends. I listen to their conversations, their jokes, their silliness and what party their going to next- this only makes me realize what college is really about. I study the different styles and wonder why they wear what they’re wearing. I think having an illness makes you realize and appreciate what life is about, it has let me recognize that I need to enjoy what I have, enjoy the people around me. I have missed all the youth but this magazine will me give the opportunity to experience it by working with my peers. I want this magazine and video to inspire me as much as it will hopefully inspire my audience and peers.