This week we started with Indesign, it’s a software mostly use to make publications. It was a whole new software for me but was aware of it that something like this exists. We started with understanding the most basic element first that was the interface of it followed by, how to set up a document. I think setting up a document is as important as others steps of the design process. It makes our work more convenient. Then we explored different basic tools of Indesign and worked with them to get a basic understanding of what they do and what more they can do. So, week two was about this only, our introduction to Indesign.

The start of the week was with a refreshing and kick-starting our mind with Photoshop and Illustrator. After coming back from a long vacation, we were told to recall what we did in our last semester. So we had to make a vintage travel poster using photoshop or illustrator. So I chose London to work on because I think it’s a bridge between the past and present. We can relate London to the past also, and at the same time, we can see the modern version of it also. I chose to work on photoshop so that I can play with the elements as I want to. Firstly, made a sketch of a gist of London. I have never been to London. So this is a reference form what I saw it on screens. I used a simple technique of painting strokes then mixing them using a mixer brush tool and then some adjustments to get the following output.

 

So in this class, we were told that what we read in the seminar class we have to represent it visually. So we have to choose any 5 cities from the book “Invisible Cities” and represent those cities visually through illustrations. So it was an interesting process because how Calvino has described cities is fascinating and then converting them into something tangible and visually communicating stuff. So I tried to give a glimpse of the city to the audience.

We watched the movie “Amelie.” It is a story about a girl who wanted to help others. She played different roles in a single role like a matchmaker, guardian angel, and all-rounder helper. In the process of helping, she found a boy and fell in love with him so with all this happening, how she able to meet her love. We saw this picture to understand the unique perspective of her, how she looked at the world, to understand the perspective of the director also. The movie gave us a whole new perspective of the city she was in.
Then we were told to click pictures of the city with our own perspective using Gestalt’s theory and to tell a story with it.

 

The starting of this module was with a light team building and relaxing session. We were told to explain the meaning of the word, that the faculty has given us with the help of a skit. I think proper rehearsal and script is important for a smooth going skit. An understanding between the teammates is also important, this is a key element of a group task. So this was an advantage for all of us that we can make our own group. Although describing a word with the help of skit was a bit challenging because you have to expand a word into a 5 min experience. So it was a good start for us to face further challenges.

We discussed that what could be the different perspective or lens did Calvino use for his writing “The Invisible Cities.” So for me, there could be a possibility that these are the imaginations of his childhood because how children imagine their surroundings is something relatable to this for me. Children imagine everything in a dramatic way, how their parents tell them bedtime stories. So they make their own world of imagination with those fictional elements. And their surroundings started to change as per the stories with the touch of their innocence with no specific shape and forms. So what if these are his memories of his childhood, how he looked to a place he visited. There is a feeling of nostalgia for me in his writing.

The beauty of different ways how we can tell a story is something which is different for different people. We are referring to “Invisible Cities” by Calvino, in which he described cities with his own perspective and imagination. The way he expressed city can be real or imaginary. The element he used to describe the city can be direct or can be metamorphic. This is my personal thinking that; how he represented the city and also giving room to his audience to think it in a different way is something unique about it. So for me, the beauty of the text is that everybody can imagine the same city in a different way though he expressed it in his way.

So how we all imagine our past and our space is something which is personalized because we all have our personal feeling connected to it. But when we tell the same story to another person, there are three possibilities that we communicated well, and the audience got what we wanted to say; secondly, they didn’t get anything; or third, they got everything, and they are also connecting their feeling and building it more in their way. So this is what we did in our lecture, we read the essay’s of each other and communicated it through quick thumbnails that what we got from the description. Most unique thing we got from this exercise was that everybody looked at the same space in different ways. We got different perspectives on a single space, or I would say on the same description.

My space (The Back Wall)
It all started with a plain white wall. When we moved into our new home and looked at our room for the first time. Maa said, “I need a photograph for this wall, it’s too empty.” And that day my brother decided that we have to paint the wall. We didn’t do anything at that time. We postponed that plan for a long time. Firstly, we both were curious what to do. Sometimes I kept looking at the wall. It was too monotonous for us. Then after a long time, after 6 years, we finally found something for the wall. It took us a whole day to paint it. We painted a man sitting on a bench with an umbrella in the rain. After that day we started feeling the presence of a third person in the room. Sometimes we felt like it’s glowing at night. It was a scary feeling. It felt awkward because there was a feeling of another presence which seemed like a threat to our privacy also, but because we put so many efforts in it, it was there at our wall for a year. Now there is a photo frame on that wall.

So we all use many products in our daily life. Our day starts with a toothbrush and ends at a switch or mobile phone. Our lives are nearly impossible without them and also the products are useless without a user. So we are living in a cycle; where everything is dependent on each other, and it’s going on every day. So we are living in an ecosystem with many elements including us. We all are affecting each other’s lives knowingly and unknowingly. We do many things which are affecting this ecosystem. So we are researching that starting from a person going on and on to the world, how we are affecting this Earth.