Research log for In the Frame unit

While studying for this course and planning to create a fanzine as the final project of the unit, I was mostly interested in art direction for magazines. I was studying in the library, looking at the art direction of old issues of magazines such as NOVA, The Face, Purple, Vogue etc.

And here are some books I have been reading:

By Liz Farrely

Generalizing

The term is finishing, but out Fashion Media Laboratory project is not. We did not manage to make it working on time, but not because we were not working hard enough. Our website is of completely different nature than all the other ones. We are working with a client, creating a website for an existing designer so naturally it takes us much more time to find something that would be exactly right for the brand.
In my essay about this project I have talked about the whole process we were going through. I also presented some of the layouts we worked on, but they didn't pass "Tim's" police. :)
As I have mentioned before, this course has taught me so much and I am very happy about it.
I am happy we had Luke who was very nice and helpful all the time and Peter sharing his knowledge. I would have loved to have more lectures than just constant tutorials though. I am sorry, but I have a hunger for knowledge here.
On my free time, I was training myself a bit on working with the programs and getting to understand art direction better. As for practical knowledge, Lynda is undescribably fantastic. I LOVE IT.
I found a lot of inspiration and good ideas in these two particular books:

And here are my two ultimate online inspirations for this project:

Maison Martin Margiela

and Comme des Garcons websites.

Some quotes that inspire me for my current essay

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Term 2 brings even more excitement. And work!

Fashion Media Lab is definately one of my favourite courses - not that others are not. But it gets us working on very exciting projects. First term I had an amazing experience of creating fashion films, this term we continue by building up websites. I have worked as an EIC on one website before, so the web talk was a bit familiar to me, but the htmls and all the programming always seemed so mysterious. And now we are learning that - things I never imagined I could do!

my very, very first html

For our Media Lab class we are working on a very exciting project - building up a website for an up-and-coming designer. We have already started collaborating with the designer, it seems quite good and promising. And we will even be making a film to present his new collection, which will be showed at LFW in February. I am in the group with Zahra, Janna and Mariana CP and we couldn't be more excited about that. Roles are clear in our group already, me and Mariana are doing the art direction of the website - I am very happy as that was exactly my goal. Today we have spent a couple of hours building up the ideas of how the website should look and function. It's going quite well, we might have a nice work in the end.
So, as you can see, I am very happy and very excited. There is just one thing - I am sure that Peter could teach us a lot and it would be fantastic and if he could share his experience and knowledge with us more. And so far all that we are doing is juts presenting our work in progress to him and everyone else in the class. I know it is important, but... Well, hopefully it is yet to come and we will hear Peter talking more often.
But I just had a panick attack tonight, as I realised how much we have to do for all the courses in a very short period of time. The term is ending in less than a month. And we have A LOT MORE than just a lot of work to do. I'm scared!
And still - I am already very sad that this course is going to end really soon. I already want to do it again.

Talking about the future

My essay is done now and I have done quite a lot of research, reading in order to write it. I absolutely enjoyed the process and the topic of niche magazines and "Visionaire" was something that interests me very, very much. Going to LCF library and checking out old "Visionaire" issues was an amazing experience. I know my essay could have been better, if I would have managed to get a personal interview with Cecilia and that was the plan at first. I am very happy she agreed to answer my questions, but due to the holiday period I did not manage to get the answers to my questions on time. Still, in the period of twenty years, they have talked quite a lot about the publication, so it was only a question of me digging well enough to find all this information.
As this was the Fashion Futures course, I believe (and reading the interviews with magazine editors, I notice I am not the only one) that for the magazines to survive in the digital era there is only one way - to offer something exclusive, something that can not be found online, an experience. That is why I am so drawn to these artisanal niche magazines - they bring magazine publishing to art and to the future. I particularly loved the title of the book about "Visionaire", it is called "Dreaming in print: a decade of "Visionaire". I think that is what these people are doing: dreaming in print. And I find it very beautiful. It will be interesting to see how the magazines are going to evolve and maybe in 50 years for our kids will be hard to believe that those interesting objects are something that used to be plain printed paper magazines.
We will see.

An image from Visionaire #59 FAIRYTALE

Research log for Fashion media Laboratory

My initial idea was to write about non-narrative fashion films, but once I started recearching this topic, I realised that there is very little information about that.
As I was still interested in this particular topic, I decided to alter it a bit and talk about both narrative and non-narrative fashion films instead.
This is not a post documenting all the research I did - I didn't continue my research log during the original research period, I am only writing about it now, as the essay is finished - so I am looking backwards. I have read and researched much more - not everything I read got actually used for the essay I wrote, but it certainly gave me a broader understanding about fashion films in general.
My research started with watching a lot of fashion films – I needed to separate the two types in my head at first.

Started with the films for Gareth Pugh of course, even though I have seen them all, even a couple of times. I personally find them very appealing.



I like this one as well:



I love this one and have seen it a million times. I just think it is visually beautiful and I absolutely LOVE the music here. Though this film made me realise that there are films which are "in between" - I do not know if it is narrative or non-narrative, it all depends on the way you interpret what you see there.



I personally am not a huge fan of narrative fashion films - I get bored very easily. I find non-narrative films with strong visuals much more appealing. And this Dior film - with that "scary" bag in the room - I think it's a bit ridiculous.







Andy Warhol's screen tests and some early films were non-narrative as well:





And then were there dozens of more films I watched preparing for this essay...

One of the interviews I watched - with filmmaker Ruth Hogben:



Besides the articles and books that were featured in my bibliography, I also read:
A Brief Introduction to the Fashion Film

Narrative Theories

Some of the essays in this book have given me a broader understanding about narrative in films

There were more and the time spent on my research can not fit in to this little research log - but these are some bits that helped me on my way to writing this essay.

Visionaire #47 Taste