The process of selection
Week three has been about consolidating the research and methods applied to investigating our chosen location. As suggested by the tutorial group previously, I decided to narrow down my search to a single location within the market, and to go deeper into the exploration of my chosen place through decontextualisation and the creation of printed artefacts that could uphold visual elements intrinsic to the location.
I chose Donburi Inn, a popular traditional Japanese and Chinesse restaurant as my focus point for the following reasons:
- Interesting visual language.
- Aways busy and lively.
- An example of “vernacular” design in today’s Oxford.
- Accessible at different hours of the day.
As I visited the site once again, I was drawn to the customer’s post it notes on the walls around the place. I haven’t seen these details before going inside the restaurant, so I decided to explore these notes in more depth to understand the place in a new way. Again, I recorder the notes by using black and white phone photography, allowing me to subtract the most relevant information as I’d previously done with textures, symbols and images.
Exploration
Adding this ‘human element’ as a new layer of my understanding of the place, along side the visual material I had already collected, was the beginning of a process of experimenting with printed media, arranging, composing and developing relationships between the different visual elements borrowed from the space. I started to play with the idea of creating a ‘portable’ wall, or artefact that could be taken to a different location and convey the ‘spirit’ of Donburi Inn.
Paper Matters
Through this brief I’ve started to tap into the idea of creating printed artefacts as a method for investigating. Through gathering, collecting, sorting and decontextualising these pieces of information, I was able to explore their meaning and connections through the creation of a small publication.
But what I found most interesting was to present this process to the group and test the very effectiveness of the artefacts in a real context. Here is some of the feedback I received:
• You really have found a focus points that is quite unique to the site. The notes that have been left to the sits create an interesting patterns for this place, and the notes that you create based on it are actually start to have a pattern and language that you built up through the process of investigation. I really love your publication, which it really accumulate the visual language that appear in this place.
• The gathering of all brand representations of the place, and the mixture of different elements explored through the brief from the map to the textures. Also, the different types of colours to categorise different found typography, textures and illustrations works well together.
• I like the form of publication and the notes, make me feel like I’m really there. Also clearly shows the visual elements in the store.
• I like the layering that happens at the end of the book. The meaning is made through interaction, and I wander whether you could try other kinds of transparent paper materials in the book to develop this interactive reading of the space…
“Immutable Mobiles“
I also explored using these printed “building blocks” and their unique qualities, by sorting them out by type, such as images and symbols, textures and patterns, and type and handwriting.
By creating this set of blocks I think I started to look into reconfiguring the relationship between the elements which could spark new meanings to understand my chosen location.