This document provides guidance for research on relevant practitioners, theorists, and influences for a final major project (FMP) in graphic design, filmmaking, fashion, photography, or other creative fields. It instructs the reader to research a minimum of 3 influential people in their chosen medium through books, images, and their work, beliefs, and approaches. The reader is also advised to research representation theory if their work will represent a specific social group. The research aims to contextualize the direction of the reader's work and draw on what was taught in theory lectures.
Fostering Friendships - Enhancing Social Bonds in the Classroom
1a. FMP Theory
1. FMP
• Collect theories and relevant practitioners for your style of FMP
• Research graphics designers, filmmakers, fashion designers, artists, photographers, authors, journalists.
• Even if you don’t like their work, if they are significant to the area you are working in, find out about them.
• Collect their work, beliefs, approaches to work.
• Focus on the person- who they are? What they believe? Their approach to work. What have they said about
the medium your working in?
• Make it detailed. Become an expert on the people you look at.
• Include images to illustrate the topic.
• Explore a MINIMUM of 3 people
• Look at BOOKS (Library and Google Books)
• If you find someone you like- put there name in Google Books and see if anyone has written about them or if
they wrote a book
• Use Harvard referencing (Neil’s Toolbox)
• If your struggling- google search: ‘(Your Medium Here) Theory’ or ‘Magazine Theory’, etc.
• Branch out into representation theory if your product will predominantly represent a specific social group.
What other theories could you include?
• Use what we taught you in theory lectures on a Monday to develop your work.
2. This is not research
• This is really about putting what you what to do in to context. It’s to
look at your potential influences and contemporaries.
• This builds on your theory work. This helps define the direction you
are heading.
• Look at the examples, they will help.
3. Research Intentions
• For this project I will be researching about different techniques in existing
products that would be interesting to produce. I feel like it will be
challenging to create something unique but I believe that with my research
I will be able to achieve that. I will be looking closely to the details in the
existing product to know how that product has being appealed to that
audience and in what aspects it catches my attention. I will be also looking
into different products such as books, magazines and posters, I want my
product to be creative and something new but at the same time an
overview from what I have learned in the past years. I know that for this
project I want to build an actually scale model and through that I will be
taking images to create my book. In the research I need to make sure that
the content will be helpful for me so that I can achieve everything I need
for the content in my final product. I intent to find a good information
based on the area that interests me the most which is connected to interior
design.
4. • Books cover which will help me have an idea of how I can be making
my own.
• Research about different styles and get to know some of them so that
I could collect content for my pages in ways that will interact with my
audience.
• Look into surveys and media kits of books and magazines to know
how they’ve appealed to their audience. I can also research and
through that I can create an survey to collect responses from my
audience.
• I will be also explore different works from different graphic designers
to get inspired with it. For example, Milton Glaser or Ellen Lupton.
Also, it will be also helpful to research photographs and interior
designers to inspires me creating my products.
• I feel like looking into others artists work will be inspiring me to go
bigger in this product.
5. Stefan Sagmeister
• I found this graphic designer while researching about graphic
designers. Stefan is a graphic designer, storyteller and
typographer from New York. He was born in Austria and moved
to New York as he earned a scholarship in a Institute in New York.
Sagmeister has also promoted brands, music and entertained
diverse clients such as HBO, Guggenheim Museum and Time
Warner. I could see some of his work and he uses his work to
express powerful information such as racism and important
things that should be passed through and he does that by using
his creative way of showing to the world things that matters. I
feel like this type of products are important because the main
purpose of the product is to inform others about facts that are
important for the society, things that is happening around us that
sometimes we don’t even know how bad it is. I think that posters
that has a message behind it makes the product much more
interesting for the readers even for the creator as they created a
product with this powerful message to share it to the world. In
my product I intend to use something similar to this, if I make a
magazine I can create a powerful poster or instead of advert I can
use the space to pass messages similar to this one.
Sagmeister, S. (-). Work. Available: http://sagmeister.com/ . Last accessed 24th Jan 2020.
Famous Graphic Designers . (-). Stefan Sagmeister Biography. Available: https://www.famousgraphicdesigners.org/stefan-sagmeister . Last accessed
28th Jan 2020.
7. • Kraft is a photographer that spent most of his time
living in the mountains in America. I found his
photography so interesting as you can actually
imagine being in that place with the mountains
surrounding you. I think that he expresses his feelings
though his photography and that is the main reason
why I found it so attached to my project as I wanted to
develop this skill in my own project. I feel like a good
photograph can express everything, specially feelings
and at his work I can see how passionate he is of doing
what he likes. Kraft says in his biography that he likes
to work closely with his client during the process so
that he could be able to achieve the clients’
perspectives though his work. I think that makes him a
good photographer as he shows that he cares with
their clients making them feel connect while he works
to give the best results. It really inspiring his work.
Kraft, A. (2020). Jackson Hole Architectural and Editorial Photographer. Available: http://kraftyphotos.com/ . Last accessed 24th Jan 2020.
Aaron Kraft
9. • I found this interior design website when I was
researching for my theory project which is based on
interior design. While looking at the website I was able
to see their different ideas for decorating for different
space. I found this quite interesting and inspiring for
this new project. I use to see interior design as a
simple thing but it is so much more as it makes the
space more comfortable for their clients. I really liked
this designer’s work, the way that everything matches
such as the furniture and the whole space is matching.
They are a company from Hessle, East Yorkshire. A
thing that I liked about this website is how informative
they are about their services, they show different type
of decorations and the stages of how they work to
provide the best service for their clients. They are
passionate about what they do and this is what makes
their work so interesting for me.
Turning Leaf Interiors. (-). -. Available: https://turningleafinteriors.co.uk/gallery/ . Last accessed 24th Jan 2020.
Turning Leaf Interiors
10. Paula Scher
• Paula is one of the most influential graphic designers in the
word, says Pentagram where she joined in 1991. She is also
a painter and art educator in design along with graphic
designer. I feel like Paula’s work are different from the style
that I created for my projects, she uses strong colours,
different shapes and formats of fonts which for me has too
much information. I think that it just doesn’t match with my
products because I like to keep it simple by using a layout
that will make the audience understand the message
behind it. However, it always good to explore the ideas
beyond what I normally create and that is one of the main
reasons why I chose to talk about Paula’s work. I liked how
it catches the attention because of the colours, the contrast
between black and yellow or even the pink. I think that the
main purpose of her work is to catch the audience’s
attention to read that poster and that’s why she creates
posters with eye catching colours and fonts.
Publications. (2011). Paula Scher: Maps. Available: https://www.pentagram.com/news/paula-scher-maps . Last accessed 28th Jan 2020.
12. Make It Bigger, Paula Scher
• Paula wrote some books and also designed
some of them. Scher in this book reveals her
thoughts on design practice, drawing and her
experiences working as a designer. She talks
about her favourites designs and her
thoughts about that designers, the way that
she talks it shows that she was inspired by it.
She always talks through about her life and
what happened until she gets where she is
now, it is quite interesting to know the things
that happened in her journey and the
opportunities that she had.
Scher, P (2002). Make It Bigger. -: Princeton Architectural Press. p18-19, p56-57. Available: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RFk9beI13-
0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=paula+scher+books&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjLmrCmzavnAhXiQkEAHZMIAAMQ6AEIKTAA#v=twopage&q&f=false Last visited: 30th Jan 2020.
13. Colour Theory
• In this book they are focused on mixing colours but I found
quite interesting to know about more about the colours and
the differences of pigmentation. I think that this book was
helpful to me as I didn’t know about the types of pigment
such as mineral and modern, but in this book they are
helpful for painters as I feel like they would be more
interested to know about that and it would be more helpful
for them as well.
• I found this book; Color Planning for Interiors by John Wiley
& Sons. In this this book it shows the steps of analysing the
colours when connecting with interior design. I like this book
because it gives information about things to consider while
creating a design for a client. For example, the relation of the
light in the colour, the materiality and the interior to make
sure that it is actually what the client is expecting. It is
helpful for designers as they can analyse how leaders in the
field examine the colours that they will be using.
Mollica, P (2013). Color Theory. -: Walter Foster Publishing. p29-30.
Portillo, M (2010). Color Planning for Interiors. -: John Wiley & Sons. p2-8.
14. Bibliography
• Famous Graphic Designers . (-). Stefan Sagmeister Biography. Available:
https://www.famousgraphicdesigners.org/stefan-sagmeister . Last accessed 28th Jan 2020.
• Kraft, A. (2020). Jackson Hole Architectural and Editorial Photographer. Available: http://kraftyphotos.com/ .
Last accessed 24th Jan 2020.
• Mollica, P (2013). Color Theory. -: Walter Foster Publishing. p29-30. Available:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9VK3OIpiYagC&printsec=frontcover&dq=colour+theory&hl=en&sa=X&
ved=0ahUKEwjW74Gm1avnAhWykFwKHaNBAWAQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
• Sagmeister, S. (-). Work. Available: http://sagmeister.com/ . Last accessed 24th Jan 2020.
• Scher, P (2002). Make It Bigger. -: Princeton Architectural Press. p18-19, p56-57. Available:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RFk9beI13-
0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=paula+scher+books&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjLmrCmzavnAhXiQkEAHZMIAA
MQ6AEIKTAA#v=twopage&q&f=false Last visited: 30th Jan 2020.
• Turning Leaf Interiors. (-). -. Available: https://turningleafinteriors.co.uk/gallery/ . Last accessed 24th Jan
2020.
• Portillo, M (2010). Color Planning for Interiors. -: John Wiley & Sons. p2-8. Available:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kTGtG0dl5_IC&printsec=frontcover&dq=colour+theory+interior+design&hl=en&sa=X&ved=
0ahUKEwjPh-rp2K3nAhVKTcAKHV7eC6QQ6AEIMDAB#v=onepage&q&f=false
• Publications. (2011). Paula Scher: Maps. Available: https://www.pentagram.com/news/paula-scher-maps .
Last accessed 28th Jan 2020.
• Kelly Hoppen. Available: https://kellyhoppeninteriors.com/commercial/development-north-tower-vip-
lounge-one-park-taipei-taiwan/ . Last accessed 28th Jan 2020.
Editor's Notes
Bullet points of what I will be looking at on my research and how it will be helping me.
What do I take away from each piece.
Primary and secondary research.