Dr Me Workshop

We were set a day-long workshop brief by Dr. Me to pair up and design our own flags that could represent something about ourselves. Part of the challenge was that we were assigned a partner at the start of the brief and could not choose who to work with. I was pleased to be paired with Seb, who is next to me alphabetically and who I have not had a chance to work with since first year. After exploring some initial concepts, our chosen theme was to make a flag which showed the process of our collaboration in making the flag ie. to conduct the day workshop as if we were trying to develop as many individual ideas for what a flag could be to us and combining these to create an outcome that makes the collaboration process more transparent.

Our first idea was to join our half-faces to make one on the flag and show each of our ideas for the brief with a distinct spit down the middle. Through this we wanted to demonstrate the very different approaches that Seb and I have to the design. After taking photographs of each other's faces, we selected the best versions and I tried a few different methods for attaching them. While I was able to get them matching up fairly well, after experimenting with the joined faces we both realised that this was probably not the best direction for the brief and instead focused in on creating a flag which was essentially a large design sheet which would demonstrate the concept more clearly.

Initial experiment using photo manipulation

At this stage of the day, we worked separately to fill an A3 page with ideas that we could think of to answer the brief. We had agreed that we wanted to make the contrast between our two design sheets as clear as possible. So while Seb worked on his minimalist sheet, I brainstormed as many ideas as it took to fill the entire page, using diagrams and sketches to show my thinking. I was pleased with the effect as it contained loads of different approaches that could be taken with the brief, across a range of different topics. I liked the idea that somebody in the exhibition space could look closely at the flag and notice a tiny detail that has been blown up to the 1m format.

In doing this, we wanted to reflect our different attitudes to design through our sketches and handwriting. Seb wanted to communicate order, organisation and space by neatly drawing his design sheet to a grid and using a ruler to make connections between points. Here was his design sheet:

In contrast I wanted my sheet to be exciting and crowded and so proceded to quickly generate as many ideas for what could go on a flag as I could. I used quick sketches, notes and connections to fill as much of the page as I could. The contrast between the two sheets is just what we wanted to ahcieve. 

In combining these, we decided that we would both prefer a white-on-black chalkboard effect as a white flag is associated with surrender while the black flag is an anarchist symbol and we prefered this as a solution to the brief and foudn it to be the more visually interesting approach. In our first attempt at putting this together, we each had one half of the flag to ourselves:

While we liked the effect, we decided that it didn't really communicate the idea of collaboration as well as it could. We experimented with laying the two sheets ontop of each other, and this created a stranger image and made everything more cluttered and raw. It also related better to our concept of representing all of our collective possible solutions to the brief directly on the flag.

Flags need to be submitted by 1st December to be entered into the exhibition, so after some trouble trying to print online, we were able to book a slot in digital fabric print and produce the flag full size and inexpensively.

We were able to get the flag hemmed and sent off in time to be in the flags exhibition. Neither of us could make the exhibition at Islington Mills but we could see our flag on the dr me instagram from the night.