OUGD503 - Responsive: Yoke Brief

Two third years have set up an exhibition called Dialogue, and asked our class to produce some posters for it. The theme is dialogue, and can take any form you want. They are going to be printed on top of another submitted piece, and here are some examples they showed us.

Here is the brief and submission details on the website:

I started thinking of ideas through a mindmap.


As I like coding, I wanted to produce something in code style, as it would also fit their simple aesthetic. As the brief suggests doing a past conversation, I decided to base my idea on when I bought an ice cream at the weekend in Cleethorpes. There's quite a lot of dialogue involved, asking questions about sauce, sprinkles, size etc, and exchanging the money as well as small talk. I wanted to do this as it's a simple exchange, but it was nice to have that simple exchange for a day when I am usually doing work all the time.

I wanted the code to actually work, so I also tested it.

I started coding, and used two different classes, called vendor and customer so you know who is talking. For each, they have different fonts and sizes to represent tone of voice. The vendor is more confident, and older, whereas the customer is younger.

At first I didn't realise why the sauce flavours were going on the next line, but I then figured out I needed to make it a span class, not a div.

I also didn't know what kind of inline style to make it, whether I should add the colour code there, or add a class to it with the name of the colour it would be. In the end I thought adding a class would be better, because the viewer could understand it more easily rather than having the colour code.

Here it is in the end. At first it was too small at 12pt, so I chopped out some of the conversation and head so it could be 15pt.

The title is Ice Cream Order so you know what is happening.

I also added comments to add as stage directions to describe what was happening.

I also added a form when the vendor asks what flavour sauce they want, as a radio checkbox so that only one flavour can be picked.

Although it is boring here, it might look quite quirky over a photograph in colour, and it will bring people over to it to see what is written. I wonder if anyone will be able to understand it because it is written in code, and people submitting like print, it would be interesting to see.

The next poster I wanted to do was turn a photograph I have taken and turn it into a half tone image. Airports have great dialogue - they connect people, let you travel across the world and I love the stories people have when they meet each other- which are usually dramatised in programmes like Airline. As I have a recent photo I took in an airport, I thought this would be good to use, and it would work well with something overlayed on top of it.

Here is the original image:

I took it into Photoshop and made it Grayscale, then went onto Bitmap.

I made it 300dpi and turned it into a Halftone Screen.

Then I played about with the settings seeing which I preferred.

Here is a close up of the halftone setting I picked.

I also tried it uncropped, which I think looks better, but the original has two people's stories so I kept that one.

Here is the final image:

For the third submission, I decided to look at ways communication can be viewed, and looked at soundwaves.

I thought it would be a good idea to record conversations that I have with my housemates, and turn them into soundwaves using a programme called Logic 9. I wanted to do this because we always sit round our kitchen table and talk while listening to music so it is relevant and familiar dialogue to me. I also thought it would work well as an overlapping screenprint, as it wouldn't fill the whole space but is also a solid colour.

I tried a few different versions before settling on this one. I chose this one because it shows a continuous linear conversation by being horizontal as well as showing different patterns in the waves.