Year 1: semester one portfolio

semester one portfolio“creativity & play”

ville niemi

How long did it take before I realised what the first semester is all about?

Not understanding the way we are supposed to work here in university and how independent it is made my first weeks very relaxed... Later I found out how things work around here and in UCA - it opened my eyes.

Not in anyhow a bad way, but it made me super interested in working! Working independently till late at University Library became a repeating pattern. I might’ve went to the library after a studio session and be there until as late as possible (8pm).

This kinda all-day not-eating-anything sessions have been intense and really nice. They’ve made me realise that I actually am very responsible of myself now.

But how have I understood this semester and what have I learnt so far?

We have been highly encouraged to experiment all sort of new things and be creative and playful. I’d say I’m always playful

and I probably will be at least on some level. Serious business is just not my business!

One of the most important things I’ve learnt this semester is “quantity over quality” when thinking of ideas. That I have to forget about details and fine adjustments, but to concentrate on the concepts and quantity of ideas. It works pretty well with me if I decide to concentrate on that... It’s just how I decide to work.

I’ve also been experimental and tried out new software. I used to do some minor things with Adobe Flash couple of years ago and now I wanted to learn using the software again.

Adobe Illustrator is a program I’ve always found very strange and scary... The word illustration has just been too heavy I guess. But encouraged by the logo brief I finally wanted to learn to use it. I’ve done couple of things with Illustrator now, and I’m getting better and better. It’s getting exciting.

SELF-EVALUATION/INTRODUCTION & CD

VILLE NIEMI : SEMESTER 1 PORTFOLIO : CREATIVITY & PLAY

A lot of my work is on digital format, so to get the most out of my portfolio, I highly recommend to put this CD into a computer already at this point. Then you don’t need to come back to this page later!

“Kinky Arachnophobist” is a proof of my bad English and passion in colours and simplicity. And geometric shapes.

The image describes a moment. It is about ahectic happening: when an arachnofobic sees a spider. i wanted to capture the arachnofobics feelings as well as the whole moment into this image.

What’s going on in the arachnofobic person’s mind? What is the surrounding atmosphere in the room where this is happening? The colour scheme tries to tell about those thoughts. it’s very nervous and vivid – restless and panicky.

Why is the arachnofobic kinky? Well, he/she doesn’t have to be. What if I tell you there is a lie in the title of the work? Ha!

I wanted to keep the symbolism extremely simple, so I made this silhouette image of a spider and positioned it in the center.

I’d say it’s a simple but complicated piece of art. You can try to explain it but at least to me the “kinky” in the title is somehow mysterious... In a way you can feel it in the image but still you can’t tell how it’s meant to be understood.

Even I, myself, am not sure what it is about, but doesn’t that make it rather interesting? I think it does.

KINKY A

RACHN

OPH

OBIST

WORD PAIRS


This is a story in which i used five word pairs:bulldog + cheatzzz, huge legs + idiot, retard + führer,

kinky + arachnofobist, bar stool + failure.The word pairs were made in a very random method so

they ended being very random as well. I wanted to keep the line on my work and I think I succeeded brilliantly.

Because the brief was to make two images; one containing no text at all, and the other containing nothing but text, I wanted to make this a story. I wanted to make it abstract and quite poetic.

To keep on the random line, I decided to mix languages. Being a native Finn, and being a fluent Finnish speaker, why not use that? Hearing about a Finn at UCA who mixed Finnish and English in speaking to create single words, I decided to write a short story in mixed languages.

I chose the font to be very computer-like ‘Fixedsys’, which makes the text look like a robot speaking. A robot that doesn’t make any sense, mixes languages and makes the words upside down...

It’s a funny fact that you can turn the page upside down and the image still looks the same. It’s the robots... They are too clever.

The work is titled ‘A True Story’ because it’s based on true events.

A T

RUE

STO

RY

LOGO BRIEF

CON

TRAST


The logo brief was one of the last briefs this semester, and I think it was one of the most interesting ones.

I find creating a logo challenging. The fact that we didn’t have any kind of a ‘client’ to design the logo for made it slightly easier though.

I picked this logo out of six ideas of mine because I found it the simpliest - yet as the one to have most possibilities.

I do have realised that you can not read “contrast” out of the small (20x20mm) logo, but it’s made on purpose. I wanted to bring out a bit of symbolism through the confusing text.

I found this kind of letters interesting and therefore I wanted to use them. They look like they could be a lot more than letters overlaying each other.

POST VS EM

AIL

NEW VS OLD


Post vs Email is an interactive animation that allows one to explore the content of the flash movie simply.

It offers its viewer four things to compare between post and email. They are brought out from

This project was funny. It was fun to try to learn use Adobe Flash again after couple of years.

The brief asked to engage our audience. I wanted to make something interactive, so that the people browsing through this flash animation would get to do something themselves.

I didn’t want to make anything too confusing or hard to understand though, so I started off with a basic animation - play & watch (that was also because I didn’t know all the tricks in Flash yet).

There are four different things to compare. To make it more interesting

to the audience, they are all a bit different. The first one is just pure animation, like a film, while one of them is just short animations when you click some icons. They all end similarly though - to a summary.

The facts in the summary are based on my research and facts. For example it’s obvious that email is nothing physical while post is, right?

My Post vs Email work is ugly in a way, because animating a flash is quite hard. It was a try though, and I wanted to keep things playful.

Ugly = playful, like kids on a sandbox.

CD /// POST VS EMAIL.SWF(recommended software: Adobe Flash Player)

author’s point of view but they can be considered as ‘obvious’ and common opinions.

Post vs Email might be a bit satirical and exaggerating but it brings out the differences very clearly and in an interesting way to watch.

EXTRA LIMBS

PENCIL CHALLENGE


SHAMS

These images are my response to the pencil challenge, one of the very first briefs. I found the brief rather interesting, even though doing any kinda sculptures of ‘random’ materials is nothing too new... BUT a person can make it something new if one comes up with an unique idea - of course!

But what comes to the brief, it was very nice that we got to ‘share’ our ideas and that we had to use/develop someone elses idea. The picture on

the left page was not originally my idea. Her idea was that pencil could be an extra limb. I wanted to keep the purpose of pencil traditional, but to make the way to use it somehow new and different. New things are usually easier to accept or understand if even half of it is somehow well-known (in this case - we are used to have pencil in our hand and write with it).

The image on the right is my idea. I wanted to create a lie - advertise

something that is nonsense. I thought what pencil consists of and lead is a part of it.

A couple of weeks before we got this brief, I had heard of conkers and how they repel spiders and I found it rather funny, so I made this picture as a homage to that rumour...

The question is - is this a rumour??

HELVETICA / MOVING TYPEFACE


Even though the workshop where we did these posters was chaotic at first, it later turned out quite nice.

Helvetica... oh boy. It’s such a cliché, but yeah of course it’s the best at the same time. Is it? This is what contemporary designers think a lot. Some hate it, some love it.

I stand more on the... ‘like’ side. I like it, it does what it’s meant to be done, and that’s cool for me. I don’t want to get all enthusiastic and crazy about it. I’m not a Helvetica-addict, but it’s just plain and simple (the things I love).

I like the fact it has such a good variety in weights. Almost all the font weights and styles work together, and you don’t need to change the font family.

We worked in pairs on this project. My pair was Alice Liu, and we chose ‘neutral is in the type not in the text’ to be our title. It describes the fact that the text you need to write is NOT neutral, so that the neutrality comes from the type - Helvetica.

I kinda like the story of Helvetica, and how it’s some fifty (or more?) years old, and it’s still rocking strong and

being the most discussed font among graphic designers.

I found it interesting when our tutor Brian said that ‘Arial is just a badly drawn, bastartised version of Helvetica’. That gave me extra interest to use Arial instead of Helvetica, because the difference is not actually that noticeable. You’re able to see the difference, but it might make you ask: “Why Arial, not Helvetica?” It could be my statement as a designer.

HEL

VETI

CA

TREAD

ON

ME / D

ON

’T TREAD

ON

ME

THE A1 PAPER SHEET - GET PEOPLE ENGAGED.


CD /// DONT TREAD ON ME.AVI

‘Tread on Me / Don’t Tread on Me’ is documentation of a project where a group of students were challenged to get busy and withdrawn people out on the town engaged with something as simple as an A1 paper sheet.

This group on the film decided to make people choose to step or

not to step onto the paper sheet set on the ground.

To make it more interesting, they wanted to see if people are evil enough to conciously break rules and do what they are told not to do.

Which side of the paper got more treading on it - the one asking people to do it or the one saying DO NOT do it?

This project was our groups approach to the ‘make people engage with that sheet of A1 paper’ brief.

I, personally, thought really hard that our group would get the most people engaged. When going out to town and actually seeing people respond to this, I saw how things really were.

We weren’t the worst but we weren’t the best either.

While we were watching aside how people reacted with our A1 paper

sheet set on the ground with thin text, my mind was bursting of ideas how it could’ve been developed on the go. However, it was a group work and I didn’t want to take all the control and change everything we were doing.

It was very interesting when i realised how actively my brain works when it sees (my) design go wrong.

That, if something during this semester, is quite important thing to learn about my creativity.

MATCHBOX PINHOLE CAMERA : INFORMATION GRAPHICS

INFO

GFX


To be honest, this brief was something I would have not wanted to do. It turned out to be extremely boring and painful after illustrating couple of frames.

In the beginning, the idea seemed super great and I wanted to keep it very iconic and smooth. When the phases became more complicated, so did the illustration.

It was a challenge that I forced myself through. Way out of my comfort zone but a nice experience.

It might be surprising that I was doing this on Adobe Photoshop. I think Adobe Illustrator would have been more suitable software for this, but as I didn’t have a lot of previous experience of Illustrator, I just found it safer to stick

with Photoshop. Working with Illustrator could’ve made it even worse experience.

I tried something and found out that it doesn’t suit my way of working... Needs too much patience.

The idea was good though, and I think the layout is very easy to follow.

PS: No, there are no more pages Yes, I gave up. How scandinavian of me.

LIMITATIONS / CREATE A TYPEFACE


Yes, this is a typeface.Typeface it is. It’s my creation

and I’m starting to like it. I made it for the “limitations” brief, where we were supposed to make a typeface out of paper. We could do anything to it; tear, crease, cut, burn, eat or even eliminate it. However, I decided to SLICE it with a knife like a proper surgeon.

All I had in mind was to create a simple and plain typeface, and I can say I ended up creating something I aimed for.

The process wasn’t anything special, but something that asked for patience. Cutting each letter at a time with an utility knife took some time, but was very interesting. I was working at University library, listening to music and SLICING letters out of a ‘normal’ A4 paper sheet.

I then placed them onto a black, a bit thicker paper and ‘laminated’ it with sticky-back plastic.

SLICE! - TYPEFACE

A JO

URN

EY OF BLU

RRED M

EMO

RIES

MATCHBOX PINHOLE CAMERA VS DIGITAL CAMERA


A Journey of Blurred Memories is an adventure to the past.

The person in the story has a passion to live certain moments in his past again but he can’t remember what has happened.

This project came to it’s final form while I was working at university library and thinking about my former ideas.

The brief was ‘matchbox pinhole camera vs digital camera’ and we were supposed to take pictures of same things at the same time but with different cameras... What made me do something different was the lack of equipment.

I didn’t have a digital camera back then when this brief was given, so I couldn’t take the digital pictures while I was taking pinhole pictures.

I, however, really wanted to take my pinhole camera pictures as soon

as possible and get the film developed - I wanted to see how my pictures would turn out. I thought “when I get the pictures developed, I can look at them and go take pictures from the same spots. No one will ever know that they’re taken at different time...”

This wannabe-sneakiness lead to a super bright idea though! When looking at the developed pictures and thinking where I were and what was I doing there and what I was wearing, I wanted to “go back to the past” and live those moments again.

It took me couple of days to do that. I wanted to make the moment as similar as possible.

The final outcome came from an idea of someone waking up (literally or metaphorically) and feeling that something wonderful has happened, but he/she can’t remember what it is. Thus, he pathetically attempts to live those moments again.

I surprised even myself with the outcome. I have never combined poetry this succesfully with anything else I’ve done.

CD /// A JOURNEY OF BLURRED MEMORIES.PDF

The only clues he has are blurry pictures in his mind. He has to work hard to understand the images.

After an encounter on his path he realises what things are insignificant and what is important.

Is it important to try go back to what has happened?

semester one portfolio“independent practice”

ville niemi

REALISATIONS : WITCHCRAFT

VILLE NIEMI : SEMESTER 1 PORTFOLIO : INDEPENDENT PRACTICE

This was a funny idea I had when I was thinking about the shape of the three circles Brian and Melissa drew me while they were explaining the content of the first semester.

The symbol (three circles) looks somehow extremely witchcraft-ish and I didn’t want to miss this chance to make a super clever poster.

That’s what I designed it to be - a poster that could be on a wall and when people see it, they would think “WHAT? Witchcraft?”, while people closer to it would see that there’s something printed with a very light ink. See for yourself and don’t think a poster it what it seems to be.

Go closer, inspect it.

WIT

CHCR

AFT

OLD VS NEW BRIEF - EARLY SKETCHES

OLD

VS NEW

- EARLY SKETCH

ES


These images are my early sketches of posters for the Old vs New brief. I was planning to do it about music, but later changed it to the post-email-thingy as I don’t think vinyls are that awesome.

The first idea was to print them ‘normally’ aka just print them, but then I realised I could try screenprinting, linoprinting or

something old school like that for the vinyl thing! That would’ve brought out the uniqueness and effort in vinyls quite well.

So, I can say this idea could have been worth bringing out to the world. But as said - quantity not quality on the ideas, and even though the quality in this would’ve been amazingly good, I found flash animation thingy more interesting.

BAUHAUS = NICE


This piece of work came to my mind when studying for the contextual studies plenary. I loved the idea of shapes having colours.

I like the concept of Bauhaus - making things super simple yet extremely beautifully designed.

This is my homage to Bauhaus.

BAU

HAU

S IS

AW

ESO

ME

SAN FRAN

CUBISM


THE TRUTH

I got inspired by cubism in contextual studies seminars. The idea of how a real event/landscape could be explained with lines and few colours is interesting.

I had to try it, but I felt like doing it in many colours.

It’s quite hard to realise what the ‘painting’ is about, so I titled it ‘San Fran’ so that there would be a chance to get it correct.

CLICHÉS

CLICHÉS O

F COO

LNESS


‘Clichés of Coolness’ is my independent practice speculating the trends in graphic design in 2010. (Inspiration by second year students’ blogs.)

Amongst some sub-cultures, space-graphics, nudity, transparent ambience and geometric shapes are the hip thing at the moment. I love triangles, so I’m affected by trends am I?

However, I also intended to experiment how easily graphics like this can be done. Cool, 2010, contemporary graphics = easily done on Adobe Photoshop.

Does it mean that ‘coolness’ in graphic design can be achieved easily? This also takes us to the question of the process - whats the meaning of that in design? None?

PS: No stock images were used. The image of the model is from my friends Aaro’s photoshoot and I asked to use it.

FAILU

RE

TIME & MOTION - CELEBRATION OF FAILURE


CD /// FAILURE.MOVplease note: this is the last thing on the cd.

you might want to put the cd back after watching - thank you.

“Failure” is the outcome of an attempt to capture speed of sound. In reality what is captured, is good ideas expressed in bad conditions.

The film is sad in a way, yet humouristic and funny. It is not intended to be serious - because

it’s best to laugh and learn when you fail.

“Failure” clearly displays what the students were on about. The way they come together in the and is a good example of active learning when trying out something and not successing.

Experimentation and failure - check. This project was interesting, and the way we came up with the idea was nice.

I and Louise had a long conversation after the briefing for ‘Time and Motion’, sharing our ideas. I learnt that you can get so much out of just sharing thoughts. Hearing what someone else is about to do - getting a better idea out of that, and vice verse.

This brief being one of the very first ones, we were still unsure if we

were allowed to work in pairs or groups. We, however, wanted to be a bit rebellious and ‘break the rules’ as Melissa had told. Therefore, we started working as a pair.

We developed the idea to something that could be somehow realised. After thinking of leaving the 5000£ uni camera to record us two being extremely far away from each other and of the camera, we decided to ask Jack assist us and he agreed.

Another issue we had to think a lot of was the place. Where would be enough open space for the voice/sound to travel? I had went to Epsom Downs on the previous week to help a friend in her project, so I suggested that.

I like the way our experimentation turned out. It was terrible back then, but now I just feel like laughing at it. At least I learnt many things, so I can say that this experimentation was not useless (I don’t think anything is).

SELF-PORTRAITS / ME


Inspired by the ‘formal innovation’ -driven portraits in the CS plenary, I wanted to make my own self portrait. It’s not anyhow special, but I really wanted to make one. Or two.

They’re a small series of ‘ville veikko tapani niemi” - that being me.

Photomanipulation on Adobe Photoshop (“photoshopping”) is not too hard nowadays and I believe anyone could do that. I don’t find it a bad thing.

I might be shocking or stupid to say that I don’t care how my work is printed. Even though I’m going to be a graphic designer, I don’t find screenprinting (and all that stuff) super interesting and I think that’s all right.

It’s how I like to do it if I need to do it. If I’m getting paid well enough, then it’s a whole different thing :-)

When I’m editing/manipulating my photos, I have a certain kinda ‘crazy’ mood on. I call that ‘bohemian’ mood. Or like very

artistic mood. I just do something that’s crazy, not because I want to be super crazy and convince I’m awesome, but because I just feel like it. I like it and it’s a way for me to express myself, and the fact I know Photoshop quite well makes working easy and smooth. I like like like it, let me please like it!

SELF

-PO

RTRA

ITS

It’s been a long journey, but everything good comes to an end.

Independent practice, eh? Doing what thou will and what got your soul in studio practice or in contextual studies. I made loads of things inspired by CS - I found it interesting.

I didn’t take that many briefs in SP (studio practice) a step further. Probably because I just wanted to concentrate on what we were doing at the moment - anything extra to that would’ve been too much for me.

I’m a bit sad about my independent practice though - I feel it’s not enough for what the tutors asked for. Still - I feel good about it.

I feel like I do have done enough, but not for tutors’ “needs”.

After all, independent practice is for oneself, is it not? I do have done a lot of thinking and creating, being experimental - even when not doing something for a brief.

I feel happy about this unit.

SELF-EVALUATION/OUTRODUCTION


Drawing people at Bishop’s Gate somewhere in London 7th October 2010. I stopped to drink hot chocolate and sit down and draw people going by, everyone who caught my attention.

Documents

Year 1: semester one portfolio